Antiquities — Book 2

Josephus · a new plain-English translation from the Greek

1. How Esau and Jacob, being the sons of Isaac, divided the land between them, Esau holding Idumea and Jacob Canaan. 2. How Joseph, the youngest of Jacob's sons, was envied by his brothers because dreams revealed to him the prosperity that awaited him. 3. How this same Joseph, sold into Egypt by his brothers out of hatred for him, rose there to distinction and the highest honor, and had his brothers under his power. 4. His father's migration to him, with his whole household, on account of the famine that arose. 5. All that befell the Hebrews in Egypt, who suffered hardship there for four hundred years. 6. How, under Moses' leadership, they left Egypt. 7. The birth and upbringing of Moses. 8. How the sea, cut off before the Hebrews as the Egyptians pursued them, gave them passage through it. This book covers two hundred and twenty years.

After the death of Isaac his sons divided the land between them, but did not each keep the portion he had received: Esau withdrew from the city of Hebron in favor of his brother, settled in Seir, and ruled Idumea, naming the country after himself, for he was called Adam for the following reason. He had once come back from hunting, worn out and starving from the chase—he was still a boy at the time—and finding his brother had prepared lentils for his own meal, a dish of a very reddish color, he was seized with an even greater craving for it and asked him to give it to him to eat. His brother, using his hunger against him, insisted on buying his birthright in exchange for the food, and Esau, driven by hunger, yielded his birthright to him with an oath. From this, because of the redness of the dish, he was nicknamed Adam by his companions in jest—for the Hebrews call red "adom"—and so he named the country; the Greeks, giving it a more dignified sound, called it Idumea.

He also became the father of five sons: Jaus, Jolam, and Korah by one wife, named Alibama, and of the rest, Aliphaz by Adah, and Raguel by Basemath. These were the sons of Esau. To Aliphaz were born five legitimate sons: Theman, Omar, Zepho, Gatam, and Kenaz; Amalek was illegitimate, born to him by a concubine named Timna. These settled the region of Idumea called Gobolitis, and the district called Amalekitis after Amalek; for Idumea, once it had grown large, both preserved its name as a whole and kept the names derived from its settlers for its several parts.

Jacob, meanwhile, came to enjoy prosperity on a scale granted to hardly anyone else easily: in wealth he surpassed the people of the region, and he was admired and looked up to for the virtues of his sons, for they fell short of no one in courage for deeds of the hand or in endurance of toil, and were also keen of understanding. Indeed, God's providence and care for his prosperity were so great that even out of what seemed grievous to him, he brought about the height of blessing, and made both Jacob himself and his descendants, through the following circumstance, the cause of our ancestors' departure from Egypt.

Jacob, having had Joseph by Rachel, loved him more than his other sons, both for the nobility of his body and for the virtue of his soul, for he excelled in understanding. This attachment aroused envy and hatred toward him among his brothers, made all the sharper by the dreams he had seen, which he reported to his father and to them—dreams that announced his coming prosperity, for men are jealous even of the good fortune of those closest to them. The visions Joseph saw in his sleep were as follows.

Sent out with his brothers by his father to gather the harvest at the height of summer, he saw a vision quite unlike the dreams that usually visited him in sleep. Waking, he laid it before his brothers, expecting them to interpret its meaning for him, saying that on the previous night he had seen his own sheaf of wheat standing still in the place where he had set it down, while theirs ran up to it and bowed down before it, as slaves before their masters. Understanding that the vision foretold strength and greatness for him, and authority over them, they did not explain to Joseph what the dream meant, as though it were not clear to them, but invoked curses that none of what they suspected should ever come to pass for him, and from then on continued to feel even greater hostility toward him.

Rivaling their envy with a determination of its own, the divine sent Joseph a second vision, far more astonishing than the first. He dreamed that the sun, taking with it the moon and the rest of the stars, came down to earth and bowed before him. This vision he related to his father, suspecting no malice on the part of his brothers, and in their presence too, asking him to explain what it meant. His father was delighted with the dream, for he grasped its prediction in his mind and, reasoning wisely, guessed shrewdly at it, and rejoiced at the great things it signified—things that foretold prosperity for the boy, and that a time would come, God granting it, when he would be honored and worthy of reverence by both his parents and his brothers: he took the moon and sun to represent his mother and father, since she nourishes and raises all things and he shapes them and instills their remaining strength, and the stars to represent the brothers, for they too, like the stars, draw their strength from the sun and moon, there being eleven of them, just as there were eleven stars.

Jacob, then, made this interpretation of the vision with good sense, but his sons were deeply grieved by what had been said and took it as meaning that some stranger, not a brother, was going to enjoy the blessings signified by the dreams—blessings which, as one who shared in his birth, it would have been fitting for him to share as well, along with his prosperity. They set themselves to kill the boy, and having confirmed this resolve, once the harvest work was finished, they turned toward Shechem—a region good for pasturing flocks and providing grazing—and there tended their flocks, without disclosing to their father that they had gone there.

Their father, in ignorance, and since no one came to him from the flocks who could tell him the truth about his sons, grew more troubled in his thinking about them, and being fearful, sent Joseph to the flocks to learn how his brothers were and to report what they were doing.

When they saw their brother arriving, they were glad—but not as at the presence of a kinsman sent by their father; rather, as at an enemy delivered into their hands by divine will, and they were already resolved to kill him and not let the opportunity at hand slip by. Reuben, the eldest of them, seeing them so disposed and united in this purpose, tried to hold them back, pointing out the enormity of the crime and the pollution it would bring, saying that though it is wicked and unholy in the sight of both God and men to commit murder even against a man unrelated to oneself, it is far more abominable to be seen to have carried out the slaughter of a brother—one whose killing wrongs the father as well, and drags the mother down into mourning and the loss of a child in a manner contrary to the law of nature.

He urged them, out of shame before these very things, and by reckoning what they themselves would suffer once their good and youngest brother was dead, to refrain from the deed, and to fear God, who was already both spectator and witness of their plot against their brother—God who would be pleased with them if they abandoned the act, yielding to repentance and self-control, but who, if they went forward with the deed, would exact from them without fail the penalty for fratricide, since they would be defiling his providence, present everywhere, lacking in nothing that is done in the wilderness any more than in what is done in cities; for wherever a man is, there one must suppose God is present too. He said also that their own conscience would be their enemy on account of what they dared, a thing from which those who have done evil can never escape, any more than those in whom it dwells as something good.

He added to what he had said that it was not right to kill a brother even if he had wronged them, and that it was a fine thing not to bear grudges against those who are so dear, for whatever they thought he had done wrong. As for Joseph, he said, they were about to destroy one who had done them no wrong at all—one whose youth and helplessness ought rather to win pity and care from them; and the very reason for the murder made the deed far worse in their case, since they had resolved to take his life out of envy for the blessings that awaited him, blessings of which they themselves would enjoy an equal share, being not strangers to him but his own kin. For in supposing that whatever God would give to Joseph was theirs to claim, they were only stirring up his anger further, and it would be reasonable to think the matter would go still worse for them if, by killing the one God had judged worthy of the blessings hoped for, they thereby robbed of them the very God who was to grant them.

Reuben, saying this and much more besides, and pleading with them, tried to turn them from the crime of fratricide; but when he saw that his words had made them no more moderate, and that they were pressing on toward the murder, he advised them at least to make the wrong they intended gentler in its manner. It would have been better, he said, if they had let themselves be persuaded by what he had first urged; but since they were determined to kill their brother, they would not be doing anything very wicked if they followed what he now advised, for what they were bent on doing lay within it too, only in a form lighter, given the circumstances. He asked them not to lay hands on their brother themselves, but instead to throw him into the pit nearby and leave him there to die, thereby gaining the advantage of keeping their own hands unstained.

The young men agreeing to this, Reuben took the boy, bound him with a rope, and lowered him gently into the pit, for it was quite dry. Having done this, he went off in search of places suitable for pasture. Judah, who was also one of Jacob's sons, seeing Arab merchants of the Ishmaelite people carrying spices and Syrian wares to Egypt from Gilead, after Reuben had gone off, advised his brothers to haul Joseph up and sell him to the Arabs; for he said that Joseph, once taken far away, would die among strangers, and that they themselves would thus be rid of the pollution. This plan approved, they drew Joseph up from the pit and sold him to the merchants for twenty minae; he was seventeen years old.

Reuben, coming to the pit by night meaning to save his brothers' victim without their knowledge, had resolved to rescue Joseph, and when he called down and got no answer, fearing they had destroyed him after his own departure, reproached his brothers. When they told him what had been done, Reuben ceased his mourning.

When the brothers had done this to Joseph, they cast about for what they might do to escape their father's suspicion. They took the tunic Joseph had been wearing when he came to them—which they had stripped from him when they lowered him into the pit—and resolved to tear it apart, stain it with the blood of a goat, and bring it to their father, so that Joseph might appear to him to have been destroyed by wild beasts. Having done this, they came to the old man, who by now had grown anxious for news of his son, and told him that they had neither seen Joseph nor learned what misfortune had befallen him, but had found this tunic bloodied and torn, from which they suspected he had fallen victim to wild beasts and perished, since he had set out from home wearing it.

Jacob, who had been holding to a lighter hope, supposing that his son had perhaps simply been carried off into slavery, now abandoned that reasoning, taking the tunic as clear proof of his death—for he recognized it as the very one he had sent him out wearing to his brothers—and from then on he grieved for the boy as for one dead. Being father to only this one son, and deprived of the comfort that other children might give, he remained sunk in his misery, believing, before he had even spoken with his brothers, that Joseph had vanished, destroyed by wild beasts. He sat clothed in sackcloth, weighed down with grief, so that neither could his children's comforting make him easier, nor did his suffering, worn down by sorrow, give him any relief.

Joseph, meanwhile, having been sold by the merchants, was bought by Potiphar, an Egyptian, one of Pharaoh's chief cooks, who held him in every honor, gave him a liberal education, and allowed him a manner of living better than the lot of a slave, entrusting him with the management of his household. Joseph enjoyed these advantages, and did not let go of the virtue that was his even amid this change of fortune, but showed that a resolute mind can master the hardships of life, when it is genuinely present in a person and not merely suited to fair circumstances that last only for a season.

For his master's wife, taken with desire both for his good looks and for his skill in the conduct of affairs, and thinking that if she made this plain to him she would easily persuade him to come to her—counting it good fortune that her mistress should ask this of him, and looking to the outward form of his present servitude rather than to the character that remained steady even through his change of fortune—made her desire clear to him and spoke words to him about lying together. He put off her request, judging it not right to grant her such a favor, since to do so would be an act of injustice and outrage against the very man who had bought him and shown him such honor; instead he mastered his passions and urged her too to give up hope of attaining her desire, telling her that it would be put aside, there being no prospect of it, and that he himself would endure anything rather than be persuaded to this—for even if a slave must do nothing contrary to his mistress's wishes, resistance to commands of this kind would have ample excuse. But her passion, far from being checked by finding Joseph did not respond as she expected, was only inflamed the more, and she was terribly overcome by

Besieged by this affliction, she pressed her second attempt with even greater urgency. A public festival came round, at which custom allowed the women too to go out to the celebration. She pretended illness to her husband, seeking solitude and leisure in which to plead with Joseph, and once she had secured it she addressed him in terms even more insistent than before, saying that it would have been well for him to have yielded to her entreaty from the start, and not to have refused her, given the humiliation she suffered in asking and the sheer force of her passion, under which she, mistress though she was, had been compelled to abase herself below her own rank. Now, showing better judgment, she urged, let him make amends for his previous ingratitude.

If, she said, he had been waiting for a second request, here it now was, made with still greater earnestness: she had feigned illness and preferred private conversation with him to the festival and its public gathering. And if instead he had resisted her first approaches out of mistrust, taking his persistence as a sign that there was no wrongdoing in it, let him now expect the enjoyment of the good things already his, which would grow still greater if he gave himself over to her love and obeyed her; whereas if he turned away from her request, he could expect her vengeance and hatred instead, and he would be choosing the mere appearance of chastity, meant to gratify his mistress, over what would actually serve him. For it would do him no good if she turned to accusing him and lying about him to Petephres, who would trust her words more than his, however true his might be.

As the woman spoke this way, weeping, neither pity moved him to abandon his self-control nor fear compelled him to it. He withstood her pleading and did not yield to her threats, choosing to suffer unjustly and to endure whatever hardship might come rather than to purchase present enjoyment at the cost of something he knew would justly destroy him. He reminded her of her marriage and of her life together with her husband, and urged her to give these more weight than the fleeting pleasure of desire, a pleasure that would leave her afterward with remorse and pain, not over the wrong she had done but from fear of being found out, and with the constant anxiety of keeping the evil hidden. Her partnership with her husband, by contrast, brought an enjoyment free of danger, and besides that, the great confidence that comes from a clear conscience before both God and men.

He told her that she would rule over him all the more by remaining pure and would exercise a mistress's authority over him, rather than being restrained by shame at sharing in his wrongdoing; and that it was far better to take courage from a life known to have been lived well than from wickedness that merely went undetected. Speaking in this vein, and adding still more to the same effect, he tried to check the woman's impulse and turn her passion toward reason. But she pressed her purpose all the more violently, and laying hold of him with her hands, she resolved, having given up on persuasion, to force him.

When Joseph broke free from her in anger, leaving even his cloak behind, for she had kept hold of it as he tore himself loose and rushed out of the chamber, she was overcome with terror that he would report her to her husband, and, smarting with humiliation, she resolved to get ahead of him by lying to Petephres about Joseph first. She judged it both clever and characteristically feminine to punish him for the contempt she felt he had shown her, and at the same time to forestall the accusation against herself.

So she sat there downcast and distraught, feigning in her anger the grief of a woman who had failed to satisfy her desire, as though she had actually attempted seduction. When her husband came in, alarmed at her appearance, and asked the cause of her distress, she launched into her accusation of Joseph. "You should die," she said, "husband, or else punish the wicked slave who wanted to defile your marriage bed, a man who, remembering neither what he is nor how he came into our household, showed no self-control, nor any gratitude for the kindness he received from you. Ungrateful as he would have been even if you had not made him master over everything of ours, he plotted to violate your marriage, and did so at a festival, watching for your absence. Whatever moderation he seemed to show before was only fear of you, not natural decency.

"It was precisely his unmerited and unhoped-for rise to honor that led him to this, as though, because he was allowed to take charge of your property and its management, and was preferred above your older household slaves, he should also lay hands on your wife." Having finished speaking, she showed him the cloak, claiming that Joseph had left it behind when he tried to force her.

Petephres, unable to disbelieve either his weeping wife or what she said and what he saw, and giving more weight to his love for her, did not turn to an examination of the truth. He judged his wife virtuous and condemned Joseph as wicked, throwing him into the prison for criminals, while he thought all the more highly of his wife, crediting her with propriety and self-control.

Joseph, then, having entrusted everything about himself to God, turned neither to defending himself nor to setting out exactly what had happened, but bore his chains and hardship in silence, confident that God, who knew the cause of his misfortune and the truth of it, would make his lot better than that of those who had bound him. And he had proof of God's providence at once: for the keeper of the prison, observing his diligence and trustworthiness in whatever he was assigned, and the nobility evident in his bearing, eased his chains, made his hard lot lighter and more bearable for him, and allowed him a better manner of living than the other prisoners.

Now among those held there, whenever they paused from the toil of their labor to talk together, as fellow-sufferers naturally do, asking one another the reasons for their sentences, the king's cupbearer, a man greatly honored by him but now imprisoned in anger, shared his fetters with Joseph and grew closer to him than the rest, since Joseph seemed to surpass him in understanding. He had seen a dream and told it to Joseph, asking him to interpret it, complaining that on top of the troubles the king had caused him, the divine was now adding the anxiety of dreams as well. He said that in his sleep he had seen a vine grown from three branches, with clusters hanging from each, already large and ripe for harvest; that he himself had pressed them into a cup the king held out, strained the fresh wine, and given it to the king to drink, who received it gladly. Such, he said, was the vision he had seen, and he asked, if Joseph had any share of understanding, to tell him what the vision foretold.

Joseph told him to take courage: within three days he would be released from his bonds, since the king would long for his service and restore him to it. "For the fruit of the vine," he said, "signifies that God gives it to men for their good; it is offered in libation to God himself, and it stands as a pledge of trust and friendship among men, dissolving enmities, taking away suffering and grief, and carrying those who partake of it toward pleasure. This, then, you say the king received from your hands, pressed from three clusters. Know, then, that your vision is a good one, and that it foretells release from your present distress within as many days as the branches from which you gathered the fruit in your sleep.

"Remember, though, once you have experienced this from the one who foretold you these good things, and once you are again in a position of power, do not overlook us, in the circumstances you will be leaving us in, once you have gone off to what we have described. For we have done nothing wrong to have come to be in chains, but it is for virtue and self-control that we are made to endure the lot of criminals, and we never wished, for our own pleasure, to wrong the man who has done this to us." The cupbearer, naturally glad to hear such an interpretation of his dream, waited for the fulfillment of what had been told him.

A slave in charge of the king's bakers, who shared chains with the cupbearer, was encouraged by Joseph's favorable verdict on the other man's vision, for he too had seen a dream, and asked Joseph to tell him what his own vision, seen the past night, meant to reveal to him. It was this: "I dreamed," he said, "that I was carrying three baskets on my head, two full of loaves, and the third full of meat and various delicacies such as are prepared for kings; and that birds swooped down and devoured everything, paying no attention to me as I tried to drive them off." He expected the prophecy to resemble the cupbearer's. But Joseph, weighing the dream in his mind, said to him that he would have wished to be a herald of good things for him rather than of what the dream in fact revealed: it meant that he had only two more days left to live, for that was what the baskets signified, and that on the third day he would be crucified and become food for the birds, with nothing able to defend him.

And indeed the outcome for both men matched exactly what Joseph had told them: for on the very day foretold, the king, celebrating his birthday, crucified the master baker, but freed the cupbearer from his chains and restored him to his former service. Joseph endured hardship in his chains for two full years, receiving no help from the cupbearer, who did not remember what had been foretold, until God released him from prison, contriving his deliverance in this way. Pharaoh, on the same night, saw two dreams, and along with them their interpretation, but on waking he forgot the interpretation while retaining the dreams themselves. Troubled by what he had seen, for the visions had seemed to him ominous, he summoned the wisest men of Egypt the next day, wanting to learn the meaning of the dreams. When they were at a loss, the king grew still more distressed.

Then the cupbearer, seeing Pharaoh's confusion, was struck by the memory of Joseph and his skill in dreams, and coming forward he told the king about Joseph, about the vision he himself had seen in prison and its fulfillment, how, on the same day, the master baker was crucified just as Joseph had foretold him, in accordance with the interpretation of his own dream. He explained that Joseph was held in chains by Petephres, the chief of the cooks, as a slave, but that he himself had said he was one of the few of the Hebrews by birth, and also by his father's reputation. "Summon him, then," he said, "and do not judge him by his present misfortune; you will learn what your dreams reveal to you."

The king, accordingly, ordered Joseph brought into his presence; and those commanded to fetch him came bringing him, having first attended to his appearance as the king had directed. Taking him by the right hand, the king said, "Young man, since my servant has testified that you are now the best and most capable of understanding, grant me too a share of the same good service you gave him, and tell me what the visions of my dreams reveal to me. I want you to hide nothing out of fear, and not to flatter me with a false account meant to please, if the truth happens to be rather grim. I dreamed that, walking beside a river, I saw seven cows, well-fed and remarkable for their size, coming up from the stream toward the marsh, and that other cows, equal to these in number, came to meet them out of the marsh, terribly emaciated and wretched to look at, and that these devoured the well-fed, large cows and yet gained nothing from it, still cruelly wasted by hunger.

"After this vision I woke from my sleep, and, troubled, pondering to myself what the apparition might mean, I fell back asleep and saw a second dream, far more astonishing than the first, which frightened and troubled me even more. I saw seven ears of grain growing from a single root, heavy-headed already and bent down under the weight of their grain and the season for harvest; and near them seven other ears, withered and weak from lack of moisture, which turned to consume and devour the ripe ears, and this filled me with dread."

Joseph, taking this up, said, "This dream, O king, though it appeared in two forms, foretells one and the same outcome for the future. The seeing of the cows, an animal born to labor at the plow, being devoured by inferior ones, and the ears of grain being consumed by the lesser ones, both foretell famine and barrenness for Egypt over as many years as the equal number that were prosperous before them, so that the abundance of those fertile years will be entirely used up by the dearth of an equal number of years following. There will be, in fact, a scarcity of necessities extremely hard to remedy. And here is the sign: the emaciated cows, having consumed the stronger ones, were unable to be satisfied. God, however, does not reveal the future to men in order to cause them grief, but so that, foreknowing it, they may make their experience of what has been foretold easier to bear through their own foresight.

"You, then, by storing up in reserve the good produce of the earlier years, will make the coming disaster imperceptible to the Egyptians." The king, amazed at Joseph's wisdom and understanding, and asking in what way he might make provision, during the years of plenty, for what would come after them, so that the effects of the famine might be lightened, was advised and counseled by Joseph to be sparing with the good produce, and not to allow the Egyptians to use it extravagantly, but to store up whatever they would otherwise consume wastefully in luxury, keeping it for the time of want; he urged him also to lay in supplies, taking the grain from the farmers and giving them only what was sufficient for their sustenance.

Pharaoh, marveling at Joseph on both counts, his judgment of the dream and his counsel, handed over to him the administration of the matter, so that he might do whatever he judged advantageous both for the mass of the Egyptians and for the king himself, considering that the man who had discovered the solution to the problem would also prove its best director. And once this authority had been granted him by the king, Joseph made use of the king's own seal, put on purple, and, driving through the whole land in a chariot, gathered in the grain from the farmers, measuring out to each only what sufficed for seed and sustenance, telling no one the reason for what he was doing.

He had by now reached his thirtieth year, and he enjoyed every honor from the king, who addressed him as Psonthomphanechos, in view of the extraordinary understanding he had shown, for the name signifies "finder of hidden things." And he takes a wife...

He also made a most notable marriage: he took to wife Asenath, still a virgin, daughter of Petephres, one of the priests of Heliopolis, the king himself arranging the match. By her, before the years of scarcity came, he had sons: the elder, Manasseh, whose name means "causing to forget," because in his good fortune he had found forgetfulness of his misfortunes; the younger, Ephraim, whose name means "restored," because he was restored to the freedom of his forefathers.

Egypt passed seven years in the blessed abundance that Joseph's interpretation of the dreams had foretold, and in the eighth year famine took hold. Because the disaster fell on people who had not foreseen it, they were all hard pressed by it and streamed to the king's doors. He referred them to Joseph, and Joseph sold them grain, having become, by common consent, the savior of the people. He opened the market not only to the natives of the land but to foreigners as well, holding that all human beings, by their common kinship, deserved to find relief from those who enjoyed prosperity.

Jacob too, since Canaan was being grievously worn down (for the disaster had struck the whole continent), on learning that the market was open even to foreigners, sent all his sons to Egypt to buy grain. Only Benjamin he kept back, the son born to him by Rachel and full brother to Joseph. So the sons came to Egypt and applied to Joseph for grain, for nothing was done there except by his authority, and it was to men's advantage at that time to court the king, since in doing so they were also courting the honor due to Joseph.

Joseph recognized his brothers, though they had no thought of him, since he had left them a mere boy and had now grown to this stature, his features so altered that he was unrecognizable to them; and the greatness of his rank made it impossible for the thought even to occur to them. He put them to the test, to learn what was in their minds concerning the whole affair. He refused to sell them grain and said they had come as spies on the king's business, gathered from many places and merely pretending kinship; for it was not possible, he said, for the children of a private man to be reared to such stature and such striking looks — that kind of upbringing was difficult even for kings. He did this because he wanted to learn about his father and what had happened to him since Joseph's own departure, and also to learn about his brother Benjamin, for he feared that they might have done away with him too, just as they had dared to do with him.

They were thrown into confusion and fear, thinking the gravest danger hung over them, and giving no thought at all to their brother. Standing to answer the charges, they defended themselves through Reuben, who spoke for them as the eldest. "We have not come here," he said, "to do wrong, nor to work any mischief against the king's business, but seeking safety, and taking refuge, in the troubles that beset our country, in your humanity, which we have heard opens the grain market not only to your own citizens but to foreigners as well, having resolved to offer deliverance to all who need it. That we are brothers and share one blood is plain even from the likeness of our features, which shows no great variation. Our father is Jacob, a Hebrew man, to whom twelve sons were born of four wives; while all of them were alive we were prosperous. But when one of our brothers, Joseph, died, our fortunes turned for the worse: our father has kept long mourning for him, and we too suffer, both from the calamity of his death and from the old man's misery. We have now come for grain, having entrusted the care of our father and the oversight of the household to Benjamin, the youngest of the brothers. You can send someone to our house and learn whether anything we have said is false."

With these words Reuben tried to persuade Joseph to think better of them, but Joseph, on learning that Jacob was alive and that his brother had not perished, threw them into prison for the time being, as though meaning to examine them at leisure. But on the third day he brought them out and said, "Since you insist that you have not come to do mischief against the king's business and that you are brothers and sons of the father you claim, you could persuade me this is so if you were to leave one of your number with me, who will suffer no ill treatment, while the rest of you carry the grain back to your father and then return to me bringing with you the brother whom you say you left behind — that will be proof of the truth."

They were now in still greater distress; they wept and lamented continually to one another over the fate of Joseph, believing that God was punishing them for what they had plotted against him, and that this was why these troubles had befallen them. Reuben rebuked them at length for a repentance that did Joseph no good now, and urged them to bear whatever they might suffer with fortitude, since God was exacting vengeance on Joseph's account. They said these things to each other, not supposing that Joseph understood their language. All of them were downcast at Reuben's words and at their own remorse for what they had done, as were those who had voted for it, judging that they were being punished justly by God.

Seeing them so helpless, Joseph, overcome with feeling, broke into tears, and not wishing to be recognized by his brothers, withdrew; then after an interval he came back to them. He kept Simeon as a hostage for the brothers' return and ordered the rest to go, once they had received their grain, having instructed his steward to put back secretly into their sacks the money they had brought for the purchase of the grain, and to let them carry that away too, without their knowledge. The steward did as he was told.

Jacob's sons, coming to Canaan, reported to their father what had happened to them in Egypt: that they had been suspected as spies of the king, and that when they said they were brothers and had left the eleventh at home with their father, they were disbelieved, so that they had left Simeon with the governor until Benjamin should come to him and so provide proof of what they had said; and they asked their father, without fear, to send the young man with them. None of what his sons had done pleased Jacob, and grieved as he was over Simeon's detention, he thought it senseless to add Benjamin to it as well. He would not yield to their pleading, not even when Reuben offered his own sons in exchange, so that if any harm befell Benjamin on the journey their grandfather might put them to death. His sons were at a loss over these troubles, and were still further disturbed when they discovered the money hidden in the sacks of grain.

When the grain they had brought ran out and the famine pressed harder, necessity forced Jacob's hand, and he resolved to send Benjamin along with his brothers, for they could not go down to Egypt except in fulfillment of their promise. As the suffering grew worse day by day and his sons kept pleading, he did not know what to do about the present situation. Then Judah, a man bold by nature in other matters, spoke to him frankly: he ought not to be afraid for his brother, nor to suspect danger where none existed, for nothing would happen to him whom God did not abandon, and this would hold true of him just as much if he stayed at home; he should not thus condemn them to certain destruction, nor deprive them, out of unreasoning fear for the boy, of the abundant provision Pharaoh offered; he should think also of Simeon's safety, lest by sparing Benjamin the journey he lose Simeon instead; and he urged his father to trust God concerning him, since God would either bring the boy back to him safe or else end their lives together with his. Persuaded, Jacob gave Benjamin over to them, and had them carry to Joseph, along with double the price of the grain, gifts consisting of the produce of Canaan — oil of acorns, myrrh, terebinth resin, and honey.

There were many tears from the father at his sons' departure, and many from the sons themselves as well; he was anxious whether he would get his sons back safe from the journey, they whether they would find their father in good health, not worn down by grief over them. A day was given over to their mourning, and then the old man, exhausted, stayed behind, while they set out for Egypt, their better hope easing the grief of their present trouble.

When they arrived in Egypt they were brought to Joseph's house, and no small fear troubled them, that they might be charged over the price of the grain, as though they had done some wrong. They made a long defense to Joseph's steward, saying that they had found the money in their sacks at home and had now come bringing it back. When the steward said he knew nothing of what they meant, they were relieved of their fear. He released Simeon and had him wait to join his brothers.

Meanwhile Joseph came in from attending on the king, and they brought him the gifts, and when he asked after their father they told him they had found him in good health. Learning that he was still alive, Joseph asked also about Benjamin, whether this was their younger brother — for he had in fact seen him — and when they said he was, Joseph declared that God stood over all as their protector, and, overcome by feeling, was moved to tears, but, not wishing to be recognized by his brothers, took them in to dinner, where they were seated in the same order as at their father's table. Joseph welcomed them all, honoring Benjamin with portions twice the size of those set before the rest.

After dinner, when they had gone to sleep, he ordered his steward to give them their grain, measured out, and again to hide the money secretly in their sacks, and to place in Benjamin's pack, besides, the silver cup he liked to drink from, and leave it there. He did this wishing to test his brothers, to see whether they would stand by Benjamin when he was accused of theft and seemed to be in danger, or would abandon him and go off to their father as though they themselves had done no wrong.

When the servant had carried out these orders, Jacob's sons, knowing nothing of this, set off the next day, having recovered Simeon and rejoicing doubly, both for him and for bringing Benjamin back to their father as they had promised. But horsemen, led by the servant who had placed the cup in Benjamin's pack, rode round and overtook them.

Troubled by the unexpected attack of the horsemen, and asking the reason why they had come after men who only a little before had received honor and hospitality from their master, they called them wretches, who, without even keeping in mind Joseph's hospitality and kindness, had not hesitated to wrong him — carrying off the cup from which he had drunk to their friendship, valuing an unjust profit above their friendship with Joseph and above the risk to themselves if they were caught. They threatened that punishment would follow, since God did not fail to notice them, nor had they escaped with their theft even though they had deceived the servant who waited on them. "We ask now," they said, "why we have come, as though you did not know; you will soon learn, when you are punished." With this and more the servant heaped abuse on them.

They, in their ignorance of what had actually happened, mocked at what was said and marveled at the servant's recklessness in daring to bring such a charge against men who had not even kept the money found in their sacks for the price of the grain, but had brought it back without anyone knowing what they had done — so far were they from any intent to do wrong. Confident that a search would prove more convincing than their denial, they told the men to go ahead with it, and if anyone were found to have taken it, to punish them all; for, conscious of no wrongdoing, they spoke with the boldness of men who thought themselves in no danger. The servant agreed to make the search, but said the punishment would fall only on the one found to have committed the theft. They searched, going through all the others first, and came at last to Benjamin, well aware that they had hidden the cup in his sack, but wishing to make the search appear thorough.

The rest, now free of fear for themselves, gave all their attention to concern for Benjamin, though they were confident that no wrongdoing would be found in him either, and rebuked the pursuers for having delayed them on their journey when they might already have been well on their way. But when, searching Benjamin's pack, they found the cup, the brothers at once broke into wailing and lamentation, tore their garments, and wept for their brother over the punishment about to fall on him for the theft, and for themselves, who would prove false to their father over Benjamin's safety. Their distress was sharpened further by the thought that, having believed themselves already free of trouble, they had been robbed of that relief just when it seemed within reach, and they said that they themselves would be to blame for the troubles that would come upon their brother and for their father's grief over him, since they had forced their unwilling father to send him with them.

So the horsemen took Benjamin and led him to Joseph, with his brothers following. Joseph, seeing him under guard and the others in mourning dress, said, "What thought, you wretches, did you have either for my kindness or for God's providence, that you dared to do such a thing against your benefactor and host?" They gave themselves up for punishment for Benjamin's safety, and, recalling again what they had dared against Joseph, called him more fortunate than themselves — if he were dead, because he was free of life's miseries, and if he were alive, because he was now receiving God's vengeance against them — declaring themselves guilty before their father, since they would now add Benjamin's loss to the grief he still bore for Joseph. Here too Reuben spoke sharply against them. Joseph released the rest, saying that he had no charge against them, and that he would be satisfied with the punishment of the boy alone, for he would not release Benjamin, since...

...it was not right, he said, to punish those who had done no wrong, nor to punish them together with the one who had committed the theft; he promised them safety if they went on their way. The others were seized with terror, stunned into silence by the calamity. But Judah, the one who had persuaded his father to let the boy go, and who was in other respects a man of action, resolved to risk everything for his brother's safety, and said:

"We have dared terrible things against you, general, deeds that deserve punishment, and it would be just for all of us to suffer for them, even though the wrong was done by no one but the youngest alone. Yet, though we had given up hope of saving him through any plea of his own, one hope of escaping this danger remains to us, guaranteed by your own kindness. And now do not look to what we are or weigh the wrong that was done, but take your own nature and your virtue as counselor in place of the anger that even small men feel once they hold power over others, using it not only in great matters but in the smallest as well. Rise above that anger and do not let it master you, so that you kill men who no longer claim their safety as their own but ask to receive it as a gift from you. And indeed this would not be the first time you gave it to us: when we came before to buy grain, you gave us food in abundance to carry home, and saved our households from perishing by famine when they were in danger. It makes no difference whether you let them die for want of the necessities of life, or refuse now to spare men who seem to have wronged you, and so grudge them the splendid kindness you once showed them — the same favor, only given in a different way. For you will be saving the very people you once fed for this purpose, and preserving, by your own gifts, the lives you did not let waste away from hunger; and it is a wonderful and great thing at once to have given us life and to grant us the means by which that life may continue in our need.

I think, too, that God, wishing to give us an occasion to display the virtue in which we surpass others, has brought us into this misfortune, so that you may be seen forgiving even wrongs done against yourself, and not seem kind only to those who need help for some other reason. It is a great thing to do good to people who have fallen into need, but it is more befitting a ruler to save those who owe a penalty for wrongs done to himself; for if letting the guilty go free in small matters of loss wins praise for those who overlook them, then to be without anger in a case like this, where a man's life is forfeit for the wrong he has done, is something added to the very nature of God. And I myself — if he were not our father, who now suffers so bitterly over the loss of his children, as he has shown through his grief for Joseph — would not, so far as we ourselves are concerned, have made this plea for our lives; I would rather, out of regard for your character, have offered to submit to whatever you wished, since it is a fine thing to save one who deserves it, and since these men, having no one left to mourn them, would gladly have accepted whatever fate you chose. But now — for it is not out of pity for ourselves, since though young and not yet having tasted life we are ready to die — but out of consideration for our father, and pity for his old age, we bring you these entreaties, and beg for the lives which our own wrongdoing has handed over to you for punishment. He was never wicked himself, nor did he beget us to be such; being good, he does not deserve to suffer such things. Even now, while we are away, he is worn down with anxiety for us; but if he learns that we have died, and how, he will not endure it, but will all the sooner leave this life on that account, hastening to bring on the disgrace of our ruin before it even reaches him, and making his own release from life a bitter one, rushing to bring himself to numbness before the news comes to others.

Consider this, then: even if our wrongdoing provokes you now, grant to our father, as a favor, what is just concerning it, and let mercy toward him outweigh our wickedness; have pity on him, who will spend his old age in solitude and die when we have perished, and grant this gift in honor of the name of fathers. For in doing so you will honor the one who begot you, and give a gift to yourself as well — already enjoying the name of father, and kept safe from such suffering by God, the father of all, in sharing whose name you too will be thought to act piously, if you take pity on our father for what he will suffer in being robbed of his children. It is in your power, then, either to give or to take away what God has granted us, and to be no different from him in this act of grace; for having received a power that works both ways, it is good to display it in kindness, and though you are equally free to destroy, to forget, as though it did not exist, your power to do so, and to suppose that you have been entrusted only with the power to save — for the more people to whom you extend this, the more you will be seen to be giving of yourself. Save us all, then, forgiving our brother his misfortune; for life would not be worth living for us if he were punished, since we are not permitted to return to our father alone, but must share here in the same ruin of life with him. And we will beg you, general, that if you condemn our brother to die, you punish us along with him as partners in the wrong; for we will not think it right to destroy ourselves out of grief at his death, but to die as men who, like him, have proved wicked. That he sinned while still young, and not yet firm in judgment, and that it is human to pardon such people, I leave to you to weigh, and I will say no more, so that if you condemn us, what was left unsaid may seem to have counted against us and made our fate the harsher, but if you release us, you may be thought, in your own kindness, to have taken those things into account as well — not merely saving us, but granting us a favor by which we will seem the more deserving of having received it, since you will have thought more of our safety than we ourselves have done. So then, if you wish to kill him, punish me instead, and send him back to our father in my place; or if you choose to keep him as a slave, I am more useful to you for your needs, being better suited, as you can see, to bear either fate."

Judah, then, glad to endure anything for his brother's safety, threw himself down at Joseph's feet, hoping by his struggle to soften and calm his anger; and all the brothers fell down as well, weeping, and giving themselves up to die for Benjamin's life. Joseph, overcome by his own feelings and no longer able to bear the pretense of anger, ordered those present to withdraw, so that he might make himself known to his brothers alone; and when the others had gone out, he made himself known to his brothers and said:

"I praise your virtue and your loyalty to our brother, and I find you better men than I expected from what you once plotted against me, now that I see you did all this to test your brotherly love. I do not think that even toward me you were wicked by nature, but that it was by the will of God, who is now bringing about the enjoyment of these blessings, and who will bring about what is still to come, if he continues favorable to us. Since, then, I have learned that our father is alive, beyond even our hope, and see you so devoted to our brother, I no longer remember the wrongs you seem to have done me, and I put aside my resentment of them; I acknowledge that I am grateful to you as fellow agents in what God had planned for our present circumstances. I want you, too, to forget those things, and to rejoice rather that the folly of that time came to such an end, than to be distressed and ashamed over what was done wrong. Do not let it grieve you that you cast an evil vote against me, since the repentance that followed came only because what was planned did not go forward. Rejoice, then, in what has come about through God, and go tell our father this, so that he may not be worn out with anxiety for you and so rob me of the finest part of my happiness by dying before he comes into my sight and shares in what we now enjoy. Take him, then, and your wives and children and all your kindred, and come settle here; it is not right that those dearest to me should live far from the good things that are ours, especially since the famine still has five years left to run."

Having said this, Joseph embraced his brothers; and they wept, and their grief over what they had plotted against him seemed to leave them no sense that any punishment remained undone, given their brother's generosity. For that day they feasted together. And when the king heard that Joseph's brothers had come to him, he was greatly pleased, and, as though touched by good fortune in his own household, provided them with wagons full of grain, and gold and silver, to carry back to their father. Having received still more from their brother — some to carry to their father, some as gifts to keep for themselves, with Benjamin honored above the rest — they set off for home.

When the sons arrived, Jacob learned the truth about Joseph: that he had not only escaped the death he had been mourning, but was alive and in splendid prosperity, sharing the government of Egypt with the king and entrusted with the care of nearly the whole country. None of what was reported seemed incredible to him, considering the greatness of God's work and his goodwill toward him, even though it had been interrupted for a time, and he set out at once for Joseph. When he reached the Well of the Oath, he sacrificed there to God; and being anxious that, because of the prosperity in Egypt, his descendants, growing attached to living there, might never move back into Canaan and take possession of it as God had promised, and fearing too that, since the journey into Egypt had not come about by God's will, his line might be destroyed — and fearing besides that he might die before coming into Joseph's sight — he fell asleep while turning this thought over in his mind.

God stood over him and called him twice by name; and when he asked who it was, God said, "It is not right, Jacob, for God to be unknown to you, the one who has always stood by and helped your forefathers, and after them you yourself. When you were deprived of your birthright by your father, I provided it for you; and by my favor, sent alone into Mesopotamia, you obtained good marriages, brought home a great number of children, and returned with wealth. Your whole family has remained with you through my providence, and Joseph, whom you thought had perished, I brought to the enjoyment of even greater blessings, and made lord of Egypt, so that he differs little from the king himself. I have come now both to guide you on this journey, and to foretell that the end of your life will come in Joseph's hands, and to proclaim a long age of rule and honor for your descendants, and to establish them in the land I have promised."

Encouraged by this dream, Jacob set out for Egypt with greater eagerness, together with his sons and their children. In all they numbered seventy-five.

I did not think it worth listing their names, especially given the difficulty of doing so; but in order to satisfy those who suppose that we are not from Mesopotamia but are Egyptians, I judged it necessary to record their names. Jacob had twelve sons; of these, Joseph had already gone ahead. I will now set out those who came after him, and those born from them. Reuben had four sons: Hanoch, Pallu, Hezron, and Carmi. Simeon had six: Jemuel, Jamin, Ohad, Jachin, Zohar, and Saul. Levi had three sons: Gershon, Kohath, and Merari. Judah had three sons: Shelah, Perez, and Zerah, and two grandsons through Perez: Hezron and Hamul. Issachar had four: Tola, Puvah, Job, and Shimron. Zebulun had three sons: Sered, Elon, and Jahleel. This was the line from Leah, and with her came also her daughter, Dinah — thirty-three in all.

Rachel had two sons: of these, to Joseph were born the sons Manasseh and Ephraim; to Benjamin, the other, ten — Bela, Becher, Ashbel, Gera, Naaman, Ehi, Ros, Muppim, Huppim, and Ard. These fourteen, added to those already counted, make forty-seven. This, then, was Jacob's own line by blood. But from Bilhah, Rachel's maidservant, were born to him Dan and Naphtali. Naphtali had four sons after him: Jahzeel, Guni, Jezer, and Shillem. Dan had one child: Hushim. Added to the number already given, these bring the total to fifty-four. Gad and Asher were sons of Zilpah, Leah's maidservant. Gad had seven sons: Zephon, Haggi, Shuni, Ezbon, Eri, Arodi, and Areli. Asher had a daughter and six sons, named Imnah, Ishvah, Ishvi, Beriah, Heber, and Malchiel. These sixteen, added to the fifty-four, complete the stated number, without counting Jacob himself among them.

When Joseph learned that his father was on his way — for his brother Judah had gone ahead and told him of the arrival — he went out to meet him, and met him near the city of Heroöpolis. His father, overwhelmed by joy that was as unexpected as it was great, very nearly fainted, but Joseph revived him, though he himself could not master the same feeling and was no less overcome than his father. Then, having told his father to travel on at an easy pace, he himself took five of his brothers and hurried ahead to the king, to tell him that Jacob had arrived with his family. The king heard this gladly, and told Joseph to ask them by what manner of life they wished to live, so that he might grant them leave to follow it. Joseph said that they were good shepherds, and gave their attention to nothing else, taking care, by staying together rather than being scattered, both to look after their father and to remain pleasing to the Egyptians by having nothing to do with what the Egyptians themselves did — for the Egyptians were forbidden to associate with flocks. When Jacob came before the king and greeted him...

and offered him his blessings on the kingdom, Pharaoh asked how many years he had already lived. When he answered that he had lived a hundred and thirty years, Pharaoh marveled at the length of his life. Jacob replied that he had lived fewer years than his ancestors, and Pharaoh granted him leave to live with his children at Heliopolis, for it was there that his shepherds kept their flocks as well.

The famine pressed harder on the Egyptians, and their distress grew still more desperate, since the river did not rise to water the land, nor did God send rain, and they themselves had made no provision against it out of ignorance. Joseph sold them grain for money, and when their money ran out they bought grain with their livestock and their slaves, and those who still had some portion of land surrendered it in exchange for food. In this way the king became master of all their property, and the people were resettled, each in a different place, so that the king's title to their land would be secure — except for the priests, whose land remained their own. The calamity enslaved not only their bodies but their very minds, and reduced them, in the end, to an undignified dependence for their food.

When the disaster subsided, and the river had again covered the land and brought forth its fruits abundantly, Joseph went to each city in turn, gathered the people together, and freely granted them the land which, now that they had surrendered it, the king could have kept and worked for himself alone. He urged them to treat it as their own and to farm it diligently, paying the king a fifth of its produce, since it was land the king was giving to them though it belonged to him. Those who had unexpectedly been restored as owners of the land received it with joy and submitted willingly to the terms. By this policy Joseph raised his own standing still higher among the Egyptians, and increased the people's goodwill toward the king as well, and the law requiring the payment of a fifth of the produce remained in force down to later kings.

Jacob lived in Egypt seventeen years, and when he fell ill, with his sons present, he died, having first pronounced blessings on them of future prosperity, and having foretold, by way of prophecy, how each of their descendants would come to settle in Canaan — which did indeed come to pass many years later. He also delivered a eulogy of Joseph, for not holding his brothers' wrong against them but instead treating them with even greater kindness, bestowing on them benefits which some men do not return even to their benefactors. He then commanded his own sons that Joseph's children, Ephraim and Manasseh, be admitted into their own number and share with them in the division of Canaan, a matter we will discuss later. He also asked to be buried at Hebron. He died having lived in all a hundred and forty-seven years, falling short of none of his ancestors in devotion to God, and receiving the reward that is due to men who have proved themselves so good. Joseph, with the king's consent, carried his father's body to Hebron

and buried him there at great expense. His brothers did not wish to return with him, for they feared that, now that their father was dead, he might punish them for their plot against him, since there was no longer anyone whose sake he would spare them for. Joseph persuaded them to harbor no suspicion and to hold nothing against him; he brought them back with him, gave them a great deal of property, and continued to show them every kindness without fail.

He himself died, having lived a hundred and ten years, a man of marvelous virtue, who managed everything by reasoned judgment and used his power with restraint — qualities that accounted for his remarkable good fortune among the Egyptians, a foreigner who had arrived among them, moreover, after the misfortunes we have already described. His brothers too died, having lived out happy lives in Egypt. Their bodies were later carried back

by their descendants and children and buried at Hebron, but Joseph's bones were carried to Canaan only later, when the Hebrews departed from Egypt, for Joseph had bound them by oath to do so. I will now relate how each of these men fared and by what labors they gained possession of Canaan, but first I must explain the reason that drove them out of Egypt.

The Egyptians, a people given to luxury and idleness, and little inclined to hard work, and prone besides to every kind of pleasure, and especially to greed, came to feel a bitter hatred toward the Hebrews, born of envy at their prosperity. For seeing that the race of the Israelites was flourishing, and that, through their virtue and their natural aptitude for labor, they were already numerous, wealthy, and distinguished, they concluded that these people were growing strong at their expense. They had also, over so long a time, forgotten the benefits they owed to Joseph, and now that the throne had passed to another house, they treated the Israelites with savage contempt and devised all manner of hardships for them. They ordered them to cut many canals to divide the river's flow, and to build walls and embankments for their cities to hold the river back from flooding and forming marshes, and to raise up

pyramids as well, and in this way wore our people down, forcing them at the same time to learn every kind of skill and to become inured to hard labor. They endured these hardships for four hundred years, the Egyptians straining to destroy the Israelites through toil, and the Israelites forever striving to prove themselves stronger than what was imposed on them. While matters stood thus, a further cause arose that made the Egyptians all the more eager to bring about

the destruction of our race. One of the sacred scribes — for such men are skilled at declaring the truth about things to come — announced to the king that at that time a child would be born to the Israelites who would humble the power of Egypt and exalt the Israelites, who, raised in virtue, would surpass all men and win a glory that would never be forgotten. Alarmed by this,

the king, acting on the scribe's advice, ordered that every male child born to the Israelites be thrown into the river and destroyed, and commanded Egyptian midwives to watch over the labor pains of the Hebrew women and observe their deliveries, for it was by these midwives that he ordered the women to be attended, since their kinship with the Egyptians would make them unlikely to disobey the king's will. Any who dared, out of contempt for the decree, to save a child in secret he ordered put to death along with their whole family. Terrible, then, was the suffering of those who endured it — not merely because they were being robbed of their children, and because, as parents, they were themselves made instruments in the destruction of what they had borne, but because the very thought that their whole race was doomed to extinction — the newborn perishing and they themselves soon to die out — made their misfortune bitter and beyond consolation. And so

they remained in this state of suffering. But no one could ever prevail over the purpose of God, however many devices he might contrive against it. For the very child of whom the sacred scribe had spoken was reared without the king's guard ever discovering him, and the man who had made the prophecy proved right about what would come of him. It happened in this way. Amram, a man of good birth among the Hebrews,

fearing for the whole nation, lest it should fail for lack of a rising generation, and being greatly distressed on his own account too — for his wife was pregnant — found himself at a loss, and turned to entreat God, begging him to take some pity at last on men who had not transgressed in their worship of him, and to grant them relief from the sufferings they were undergoing at that time, and from the despair

of losing their race altogether. God, taking pity on him and moved by his supplication, appeared to him in a dream and urged him not to despair of the future, telling him to keep in mind their devotion to him, for which he would always grant a due reward, since he had already granted their ancestors the blessing of becoming so great a people from so few.

"Abraham alone," God said, "came from Mesopotamia into Canaan and prospered in every way, and though his wife was at first barren, in time, by his own wish, she became fit for childbearing and bore him sons; he left to Ishmael and his descendants the land of the Arabs, to the sons of Keturah the land of the Trogodytes, and to Isaac

the land of Canaan. Consider, too, what feats of courage he performed in war with my aid, though you seem to have forgotten this, ungrateful as you are. And Jacob became known even to peoples not his own, both for the greatness of the prosperity in which he lived and for the sons he left behind him — he who arrived in Egypt with just seventy persons in all, and you have already grown to more than

six hundred thousand. Now know that I am providing for your common good and for your own honor as well. For this child, whose birth the Egyptians fear so greatly that they have condemned to destruction every Israelite child now being born, will be yours. He will escape the notice of those set to watch for his destruction, and, being raised in an extraordinary manner, he will free the Hebrew race from its bondage under the Egyptians, and his memory, for as long

as time itself shall last, will be honored among men — not only among the Hebrews but among foreign nations as well — this being a favor I grant to you and to your descendants. His brother, too, will be such a man that he and his descendants will hold my priesthood for all time to come." When this vision had made these things known to him, Amram,

once he awoke, told it to Jochebed, his wife, and their fear grew even greater on account of the dream's prediction, for they were now anxious not merely for the child but for the great prosperity that had been foretold for him. Yet the birth itself lent credence to what God had foretold, for the woman's labor escaped the notice of the guards, thanks to how easy her pains were

and because her labor came upon her without violence. For three months they kept the child with them undetected. Then Amram, fearing that the secret would be discovered and that he himself, falling under the king's wrath, would perish along with the child, and that God's promise would thereby come to nothing, decided it was better to entrust the child's rescue and safekeeping to this course rather

than to trust that they would go on escaping notice, which was, after all, uncertain — a risk not only to the child, secretly reared as he was, but to himself as well. He believed that God would provide every safeguard needed to ensure that nothing he had said would prove false. Having decided this, they wove a basket of papyrus, made to resemble a cradle, of a size large enough to hold the infant with room to spare, and then, coating it with pitch — for pitch

naturally keeps water from seeping through such woven material — they placed the child inside, and setting it down on the river, left his safety in God's hands. The river caught it up and carried it along, while Miriam, the child's sister, sent by her mother, walked along the bank beside it to see where the current would carry the basket. There God showed that

human wisdom counts for nothing, but that whatever he wills to accomplish always comes to a good end, and that those who plot another's destruction for their own safety are mistaken and labor hard in vain, while those who face danger by the will of God are found to prosper unexpectedly, rescued from the very midst of disaster. Something of this sort happened also in the case

of this child, and it revealed the power of God. Thermuthis was the daughter of the king. While she was playing by the banks of the river and saw the basket being carried along by the current, she sent swimmers to fetch the cradle to her. When those sent for it arrived with it, and she saw the child, she fell deeply in love with him for his size and his beauty; for God

took such great care over Moses that even those who had voted, on account of his birth, to destroy every other child of the Hebrew race, judged him worthy of nourishment and attention. Thermuthis ordered that a woman be brought to nurse the child. But he would not take the breast, turning away from it, and did the same with many other women, until

Miriam, who happened to be present at these events — not in a way that would seem contrived, but as if merely watching — said, "It is useless, O queen, for you to summon these women to nurse the child; they have no kinship with him at all. But if you had one of the Hebrew women brought, he might perhaps take the breast of one of his own people." Thinking she spoke well, the queen ordered her to see to this and to fetch one of the nursing women.

Miriam, given this authority, went and brought the child's mother, unknown to anyone. And the child took eagerly to the breast, and at the queen's request, the mother was entrusted with nursing the child altogether. It was from these very circumstances that she gave him the name he bears: for the Egyptians call water "mo," and "uses" those saved from

the water; combining the two words, they gave him this name accordingly. And by common consent, in keeping with God's prediction, he proved himself the finest of the Hebrews, both in greatness of spirit and in his contempt for hardship — for Abraham was his ancestor seven generations back. He was the son of Amram, who was the son of Kohath, whose father was Levi, son of Jacob, who was born to Isaac, who was the son of Abraham.

His intelligence, though, did not grow in step with his age — it far outstripped that measure — and in his childhood games he showed a maturity beyond his years, and what he did even then gave promise of the greater deeds he would accomplish as a man. When he was three years old, God caused him to shoot up to a marvelous height, and none was so indifferent to beauty as not

to be struck with wonder at Moses' good looks when he saw him; indeed, it often happened that people traveling along the road, on meeting him being carried past, would turn to look at the child's face, abandon whatever business they were engaged in, and give their full attention to gazing at him, for the charm of his childhood beauty was so abundant and so unaffected that it held all who saw it. Being such a child, Thermuthis, having no child of her own by lawful birth, adopted him as her son,

Once Thermuthis brought Moses to her father and showed him to him, telling him how she had thought of the succession, in case it should not be God's will that he have a legitimate child of his own. "I have raised," she said, "a child divine in form and noble in spirit, one I received as a marvelous gift from the river's grace, and I have resolved to make him my own son, and successor to your kingdom."

So saying, she placed the infant in her father's hands. He took him and, pressing him affectionately to his chest as a favor to his daughter, set his diadem on him. But Moses threw it to the ground, pulled it off as infants do, and trampled it underfoot. This seemed to portend something for the kingship. The sacred scribe who had foretold his birth as bringing low the rule of the Egyptians rushed to kill him, and crying out fiercely said, "This, O king, is that child whom God told us must be killed if we are to be free of fear. He confirms the truth of the prophecy by standing on your rule and trampling your diadem underfoot. Kill him, then, and free the Egyptians of the fear he brings, and strip the Hebrews of the hope his life gives them."

But Thermuthis snatched the child away before he could act, and the king was reluctant to kill him, God having so arranged things, since it was his providence that watched over Moses' safety. He was therefore raised with great care, and the Hebrews placed all their hope for the future in him, while the Egyptians regarded his upbringing with suspicion. But since there was no manifest cause for which the king might kill him, seeing that he was no kin by the adoption or by any other tie, and since there was more benefit to Egypt in the confidence his foreknowledge of the future inspired, they refrained from putting him to death.

Moses, then, having been born and raised in the manner described, and having come to an age at which his virtue was plain to the Egyptians, gave them occasion, in bringing about their humiliation and the Hebrews' advancement, to make use of him in the following way. The Ethiopians, who border Egypt, invaded their territory and carried off and drove away Egyptian property. The Egyptians, in anger, marched against them to avenge the insult, but were defeated in battle; some fell, others fled home in disgrace.

The Ethiopians pursued them, and taking their failure to conquer the whole of Egypt as a sign of weakness, pressed on further still, and having tasted its riches would no longer hold back. Since the neighboring regions did not dare to make a stand as they advanced, they pushed on as far as Memphis and the sea, no city being able to resist them. Pressed hard by this disaster, the Egyptians turned to oracles and divination. When the god counseled them to make use of the Hebrew as an ally, the king ordered his daughter to hand over Moses to become his general.

She, having made him swear he would do no harm, handed him over, judging the alliance a great benefaction, and reproaching the priests, who had once urged that he be killed as an enemy and now, needing his help, felt no shame in it. Moses, urged on by both Thermuthis and the king, gladly took up the task. The sacred scribes of both nations rejoiced — the Egyptians thinking they would defeat their enemies through his valor and destroy Moses by that same stratagem, the Hebrews thinking the Egyptians would flee before them because Moses was leading them.

He, moving before the enemy could even learn of his advance, took up the army and led it not along the river but overland. There he gave a marvelous display of his ingenuity: since the land was hard to travel because of the multitude of serpents — for it alone breeds them in abundance and with a fierceness and appearance found nowhere else, some of them even winged, which do harm unseen from the ground and, rising up, attack those who have not foreseen them — he devised a wonderful stratagem for the safety and unharmed passage of the army. He had baskets woven like chests out of papyrus, filled them with ibises, and carried them along.

This creature is the deadliest enemy of snakes: they flee its approach, and if they stand their ground they are seized as if by deer and swallowed; ibises are tame, and fierce only toward the race of snakes. I pass over writing further about this now, since the Greeks are not unacquainted with the ibis's form. So when he entered the land that bred these beasts, he fought off the nature of the serpents by releasing the ibises against them and using them as his vanguard.

Marching in this manner, he came upon the Ethiopians before they had even learned of it, and engaging them in battle he defeated them, stripped them of the hopes they had held against the Egyptians, advanced overthrowing their cities, and inflicted great slaughter on the Ethiopians. Having tasted success through Moses, the Egyptian army did not tire of the effort, so that the Ethiopians now faced the danger of enslavement and utter ruin. At last they were driven together into Saba, the royal city of Ethiopia, which Cambyses later renamed Meroe after his own sister of that name, and there they were besieged.

The place was very difficult to besiege, since the Nile surrounds it, and it is encircled also by two other rivers, the Astapus and the Astaboras, which make the crossing hard for anyone attempting it. The city, lying within as an island, is inhabited behind a strong encircling wall, having the rivers as a defense against its enemies and great earthworks between the wall and the water, so that it cannot be flooded even when the rivers run violently swollen — a feature that also made the city impossible to capture for those who had managed to cross the rivers.

Moses, chafing at the army's inactivity, since the enemy did not dare come to close quarters, found himself in this situation: Tharbis, daughter of the Ethiopian king, watched Moses leading his army up close to the walls and fighting nobly, and admired the ingenuity of his undertakings. She supposed him the cause of the Egyptians' success, who had already despaired of freedom, and of the Ethiopians' present peril, they who had been so proud of their earlier triumphs over the Egyptians. She fell violently in love with him, and as her passion grew stronger she sent the most trusted of her household servants to him to discuss marriage.

He accepted the proposal on condition that the city be handed over, and gave sworn pledges that he would indeed take her as his wife and, once master of the city, would not break the agreement. The deed followed swiftly on the words. After the destruction of the Ethiopians, Moses gave thanks to God, completed the marriage, and led the Egyptians back to their own land.

But those whom Moses had saved conceived a hatred for him because of it, and thought it right to press more urgently their schemes against him, suspecting that his success might lead him to revolt against Egypt, and telling the king about the slaughter he had wrought. The king himself had already harbored the same suspicion, out of envy of Moses' generalship and fear of his own humiliation, and, pressed further by the sacred scribes, was prepared to move against Moses' destruction. But Moses, learning of the plot beforehand, withdrew secretly, and since the roads were watched, made his escape through the desert,

going where the enemy had no reason to suspect he might be found, and though without provisions, made his way scorning the hardship through sheer endurance, until he came to the city of Midian, which lies on the Red Sea and is named after one of the sons born to Abraham by Keturah. There he sat down beside a well, worn out by weariness and toil, and rested at midday not far from the city.

There an incident befell him, arising from the local custom, that established his virtue and gave him occasion for advancement. Since the region was short of water, the shepherds would take possession of the wells first, so that the water would not be used up by others before the flocks had drunk their fill. To the well came seven maiden sisters, daughters of Raguel, a priest held in great honor among the people there. They tended their father's flocks, since this service was customary there even for women among the Troglodytes, and having arrived first they drew up water enough from the well into the troughs made to hold it for their flocks.

But when shepherds came up and stood over the maidens, meaning to seize the water for themselves, Moses thought it a terrible thing to look on while the girls were wronged and to let the violence of men prevail over the maidens' right. He drove off those who wished to take advantage and gave the girls the help they needed. The girls, so benefited, went to their father, told him of the shepherds' insolence, and urged that the stranger's kindness not go unrewarded or unrepaid.

He welcomed his daughters warmly for their concern for their benefactor, and ordered that Moses be brought before him to receive his rightful thanks. When Moses came, Raguel related his daughters' account of the help he had given, and, marveling at his character, said he would not let such a kindness be laid up among the ungrateful, but was able to repay the favor and even exceed the measure of the good deed by the greatness of his recompense.

He made him his son, gave him one of his daughters in marriage, and appointed him overseer and master of the flocks, for in those days the whole wealth of such peoples consisted in livestock. Moses, having received such things from Iethegalos — for this was Raguel's surname — lived there tending the flocks.

Some time later, while pasturing his flocks toward the mountain called Sinai, the highest of the mountains in that region and best suited for grazing, since good grass grows there, and because it was reputed to be a dwelling place of God it had never before been grazed, no shepherd daring to enter it, there a wondrous portent met him. A fire, feeding on a thorn bush, passed over the surrounding foliage and its bloom without harming them, and destroyed none of the fruit-bearing branches, even though the flame was great and very fierce.

He was afraid at the very sight of this extraordinary thing, and was struck with still greater astonishment when the fire uttered a voice, calling him by name and speaking to him — words that gave him the courage to venture into a place where no man had ever before come, because it was holy. The voice bade him withdraw as far as possible from the flame, be content with what he had seen, since he was a good man and the descendant of great men, and inquire no further. It went on to foretell to him at length the glory and honor he would have among men, with God at his side, and bade him take courage

and go to Egypt to become general and leader of the multitude of the Hebrews, and to free his kinsmen there from their humiliation. "For they shall inhabit," it said, "this fertile land which Abraham, your ancestor, once inhabited, and shall enjoy every good thing, with you and your wisdom leading them to it. And once you have led the Hebrews out of Egypt, offer thank offerings," it commanded, "when you have come to this very place, and complete them here." So much was proclaimed to him out of the fire.

Moses, astonished both by what he had seen and still more by what he had heard, said, "To distrust your power, Master — which I myself worship and know to have been made manifest to my ancestors — I judge more mad than my own good sense would allow. And yet I am at a loss how a private man, with no strength at his disposal, could either persuade my own people by mere words to abandon the land they now inhabit and follow me to the land I have in mind, or, even should they be persuaded, how I could compel Pharaoh to permit their departure, when it is by their toil and labor that he increases his own prosperity."

God counseled him to take courage about all these things, promising that he himself would be present, and that wherever words were needed he would supply persuasion, and wherever deeds were needed he would furnish strength; and he bade him cast his staff to the ground, to receive from it assurance of what was promised. When he did so, a serpent crept forth and, coiling itself in rings as if in pursuit of vengeance, reared its head; then it became a staff once more. After this he was ordered to put his right hand into his cloak. Obeying, he drew it out white, its color like chalk; then it returned to its natural state.

Bidden also to take water from nearby and pour it on the ground, he saw its color turn to blood. Marveling at these things, he was told to take courage, and to know that he would have the greatest of helpers at his side, and to use these signs so as to be believed by all, since, being sent by me, he said, you will do everything according to my commands. "I command you, without further delay, to hasten to Egypt, pressing on night and day, and not to prolong this time any further for the Hebrews suffering ill-treatment in slavery."

Moses, unable to disbelieve what the divine had promised, having been both witness and hearer of such assurances, prayed to him, and asked also to be allowed to test this power in Egypt, and begged not to be denied knowledge of his name — since he had already shared in his voice, and even in his sight — but to be told also how to address him, so that in offering sacrifice he might call on him by name and invite him to be present at the rites. And God revealed to him his own name, which had never before come to men, and about which it is not lawful for me to speak. To Moses, however, these signs occurred not only then, but constantly, whenever he had need of them.

From all these things, trusting the more in their truth because he attributed them to the fire, and believing he would have God as a gracious ally, he hoped both to save his own people and to bring disaster on the Egyptians. And learning that Pharaoh, the king of Egypt under whom he himself had fled, was dead, he asked Raguel to allow him, for the sake of his kinsmen, to go to Egypt, and

So he took Zipporah, whom he had married, the daughter of Raguel, and the sons she had borne him, Gershom and Eliezer, and set out for Egypt. Of these names, Gershom means, in the Hebrew tongue, that he had gone into a foreign land, while Eliezer means that with the help of his ancestral God he had escaped the Egyptians. When he came near the border, his brother Aaron met him, God having so commanded, and Moses told him what had happened on the mountain and the commands God had given him. As they went on, the most eminent of the Hebrews, having learned of his coming, came out to meet him, and since it was not easy for Moses to persuade them by argument, he showed them the signs before their eyes. Astonished at what they saw beyond all expectation, they took heart and grew confident about the whole enterprise, believing that God was watching over their safety.

When Moses had won over the Hebrews and found them ready to obey whatever he commanded, longing as they were for freedom, he went before the king, who had only recently taken up his rule. He set out how much he had done for the Egyptians when they were despised by the Ethiopians and their land plundered, using strategy and hard labor as though the danger were his own, and yet had received unjust repayment for it. He then laid out, point by point, what had happened to him on Mount Sinai, the voice of God, and the signs shown him as pledges of the commands laid upon him, and he urged the king not to disbelieve these things and so stand in the way of God's purpose.

The king mocked him, whereupon Moses let him see, in fact, the signs that had occurred on Mount Sinai. The king, enraged, called him a scoundrel, saying that he had first fled the servitude owed the Egyptians and now had come back by a trick, undertaking to overawe them with wonders and sorceries. So saying, he ordered the priests to produce for him the same sights, since the Egyptians were skilled in such matters too, and since he himself, being no less experienced, could show that what seemed marvelous in it was, when referred to a god, something even the unlearned could match. When they let their staffs go, they became serpents. Moses, unshaken, said, "O king, I do not myself despise Egyptian wisdom, but I say that what I do surpasses their magic and skill by as much as the divine differs from the human. I will show that my acts come not by trickery and the deception of true belief, but appear by the providence and power of God." So saying, he cast his staff to the ground and bade it turn into a serpent; it obeyed, and going about it devoured the staffs of the Egyptians, which had seemed to be serpents, until it had consumed them all. Then, changed back into its own form, it was taken up again by Moses.

The king was no more struck by this deed than before; indeed, growing angrier and declaring that nothing would be gained against him by Egyptian wisdom and cleverness, he ordered the man set over the Hebrews to allow them no relief from their labor, but to force them to still greater hardship than before. So he no longer supplied them straw for their brickmaking as he had before, but made them toil by day at their work and gather the straw by night. And since the hardship was thus doubled, they held Moses to blame, as though their labor and misery had grown harsher on his account. But he yielded neither to the king's threats nor to the Hebrews' complaints, but steeled his soul against both, set on his task of securing freedom for his people.

Coming before the king, he tried to persuade him to release the Hebrews to go to Mount Sinai and there sacrifice to God, for this, he said, was what God had commanded, and urged him not to oppose what God willed, but, holding God's favor above all else, to grant them their departure, lest, unaware, he become the one who hindered it and so bring on himself the sufferings that befall one who resists God's commands. For upon those who provoke the divine anger, terrors spring from every quarter, and neither earth nor air remains friendly to them, nor do their children's births follow the course of nature, but all things turn hostile and hateful. He declared that the Egyptians would experience these things, and along with them the departure of the Hebrew people from their land, whether the Egyptians willed it or not.

When the king scorned Moses' words and paid them no further heed, terrible sufferings overtook the Egyptians, each of which I shall set out, both because nothing like them had ever before befallen the Egyptians, so that the experience is worth recounting, and because I wish to show that Moses spoke no falsehood in anything he foretold them, and because it is useful for people to learn caution, so as to do nothing by which they might displease the divine or provoke it to anger and be punished for their wrongdoing.

For the river, at God's command, ran with blood, becoming undrinkable, and since they had no other spring of water, it was not only its color that was so changed, but it also brought pain and bitter suffering to those who tried it. Such it was for the Egyptians, but for the Hebrews it remained sweet and drinkable, in no way altered from its natural state. At this marvel the king, at a loss and fearing for the Egyptians, allowed the Hebrews to depart; but once the affliction eased he changed his mind again and would not permit their departure.

Since he showed such ingratitude and, even after his relief from disaster, no longer wished to be prudent, God brought upon the Egyptians another blow: a countless multitude of frogs fed upon their land, and the river too was full of them, so that when people tried to draw water for drinking they got it fouled by the discharge of the creatures dying and rotting in it. The whole country was full of the foul slime bred by them as they were born and died, and they overran people's houses, being found among their food and drink and swarming over their beds; and the smell was harsh and foul from the frogs dying, living, and decaying all together. Driven to distraction by these evils, the Egyptians made the king command Moses to take the Hebrews and be gone, and the moment he had said this the multitude of frogs vanished, and the land and the river returned to their natural state.

But Pharaoh, once the land was freed of the affliction, forgot its cause and kept the Hebrews back, and as though wishing to learn the nature of yet more sufferings, he would no longer let Moses and his people go, granting it, if at all, out of fear rather than good sense. So once more the divine power pursued his deceit with the onset of another evil: an unbounded swarm of lice broke out upon the Egyptians, bred from within their own bodies, by which they perished miserably, unable to rid themselves of the plague by washing or by any application of remedies. Troubled by this terror, and fearing at once destruction for his people and the disgrace of such a loss, the king of the Egyptians was forced by his own baseness to show only half-hearted prudence: he granted the Hebrews themselves leave to depart, but once the plague eased he demanded that they leave their children and wives behind as hostages for their return.

This only provoked God the more, since Pharaoh supposed he could deceive his providence, as though it were Moses, not God, who was punishing Egypt on the Hebrews' behalf. So God filled their land with wild beasts of every sort and kind, such as none had ever before set eyes upon, by which they themselves perished and the land was robbed of the care its farmers gave it; and whatever escaped destruction by the beasts was consumed by disease among the people who survived. Yet even so Pharaoh would not yield to God's will, but while agreeing that the women might leave with the men, he insisted that the children be left behind. So the divine power was at no loss to torment his wickedness with troubles more varied and worse than those that had gone before: their bodies broke out horribly in sores as their insides rotted, and great numbers of the Egyptians perished in this way.

Even this affliction did not bring the king to his senses, so hail fell -- such as the air over Egypt had never before suffered, nor like the winter storms known elsewhere, but heavier than what falls on the peoples who dwell in the north beneath the Bear -- and it came down at the height of spring and shattered their crops. Then a swarm of locusts fed on the sowing that the hail had spared, so as to destroy, down to the last measure, all the Egyptians' hopes of a harvest from the land.

These misfortunes already recounted would have been enough to bring to understanding and a sense of what was to their advantage anyone who was merely foolish, without malice; but Pharaoh, acting not so much from folly as from wickedness, though he perceived the cause well enough, set himself in rivalry against God and willingly became a traitor to the better course. He ordered Moses to lead the Hebrews away with their wives and children, but to leave their livestock behind, since their own had perished. When Moses said that this demand was unjust, since they needed the livestock to offer sacrifices to God, and time was spent over this dispute, a deep darkness devoid of any light was spread over the Egyptians, under which, their sight shut off and their breath choked by its thickness, they died pitifully and lived in dread of being swallowed up by the cloud.

Then, when this had dispersed after three days and as many nights, and Pharaoh still had no change of heart about letting the Hebrews go, Moses came to him and said, "How long will you resist the will of God? For he commands that the Hebrews be set free, and there is no other way for you to be rid of these evils than by doing this." The king, enraged at these words, threatened to cut off his head if he came to trouble him again about the matter. Moses said he would himself speak no more of it, but that Pharaoh himself, along with the leading men of Egypt, would beg the Hebrews to leave. So saying, he departed.

God, having declared that he would compel the Egyptians with one more blow to release the Hebrews, ordered Moses to instruct the people to have a sacrifice ready, prepared on the tenth day of the month of Xanthicus for the fourteenth -- the month called Pharmuthi by the Egyptians, Nisan by the Hebrews, and Xanthicus by the Macedonians -- and to take the Hebrews away with all their goods packed for the journey. He therefore kept the Hebrews ready for departure, having arranged them by kindred groups, gathered together as one.

When the fourteenth day arrived, all of them, prepared for their departure, sacrificed and purified their houses with the blood, using bundles of hyssop, and after the meal burned what remained of the meat, ready as they were to set out. From this comes the custom by which we still today offer this sacrifice, calling the festival Passover, which means "passing over," because on that day God passed over the Egyptians and struck them with the plague. For the destruction of the firstborn fell upon the Egyptians that very night, so that many of those who lived about the palace gathered and urged Pharaoh to let the Hebrews go. He summoned Moses and ordered them to depart, supposing that once they had left the country Egypt would cease to suffer, and the Egyptians honored the Hebrews with gifts, some to hasten their departure, others out of the friendship of neighbors.

So they went out, while the Egyptians wept and repented of how harshly they had treated them, and made their way toward the city of Letopolis, which was then uninhabited -- for Babylon was founded there later, when Cambyses was subduing Egypt. Making their departure in haste, they came on the third day to a place called Baal-zephon, by the Red Sea. Having no supply of anything from the land because of the wilderness, they lived on loaves made from dough mixed with flour and only lightly baked by a brief heat, and used these for thirty days, for what they had brought from Egypt could not last them longer, even though they rationed the food and used it only as much as necessity required, not to satisfaction. This is why, in memory of that time of want, we keep a festival for eight days called the Feast of Unleavened Bread.

The whole multitude of those who migrated, counting women and children together, was beyond reckoning, but those of military age numbered about six hundred thousand. They left Egypt in the month of Xanthicus, on the fifteenth day by the moon, four hundred and thirty years after our forefather Abraham had come into Canaan, but two hundred and fifteen years after Jacob's migration into Egypt. Moses was by now eighty years old, and his brother Aaron three years older. They also carried with them the bones of Joseph, as he had charged his sons to do.

The Egyptians repented of having let the Hebrews go, and since the king took it hard, believing that all this had come about through Moses' sorcery, they resolved to go after them. Taking up arms and equipment, they set out in pursuit, meaning to bring them back if they caught them, for, they reasoned, the Hebrews were no longer bound to God, since their departure had already been granted, and they supposed they would easily overpower them, unarmed as they were and worn out by their journey. Inquiring from everyone which way they had gone, they hastened their pursuit, even though the country was difficult to travel, not only for an army but even for a single traveler.

Moses had led the Hebrews by this route so that, should the Egyptians repent and wish to pursue them, they might pay the penalty for their wickedness and for breaking their sworn word, and also because of the Philistines, who, out of an old enmity, were hostile toward them, and whom he wished, in leaving, to escape notice by any means he could, since their land bordered on Egypt. For this reason he did not lead the people by the road toward Philistia, but through the wilderness, by a long and toilsome route, meaning to enter Canaan that way -- and also because of God's commands, which ordered him to lead the people to Mount Sinai and there offer sacrifices. He had already overtaken the

The Egyptians came upon the Hebrews and prepared for battle, and by sheer weight of numbers drove them into a narrow space; for six hundred chariots followed them, along with fifty thousand cavalry and two hundred thousand infantry. They blocked the roads by which they supposed the Hebrews would try to escape, hemming them in between impassable cliffs and the sea; for a mountain runs down to the sea there, impossible to cross because of the roughness of its paths, and it cuts off any flight. At the point where the mountain opens toward the sea the Egyptians blocked the Hebrews' way by pitching camp squarely across the mouth of the pass, so as to deny them any exit into the open plain.

The Hebrews could not hold out under siege for lack of provisions, they saw no way open for flight, and they were short of weapons even had they resolved to fight; they fell into the certain expectation of perishing, unless they surrendered themselves to the Egyptians of their own accord. They blamed Moses, forgetting all the signs God had worked for their freedom, and in their want of faith they were ready to stone the very prophet who kept urging them on and promising them deliverance, and had resolved to hand themselves over to the Egyptians. There was mourning and wailing among the women and children, who had before their eyes their own destruction, hemmed in as they were by mountains and sea and enemies, with no way of escape to be found from any quarter.

But Moses, though the people raged against him, did not himself grow weary in his care for them, nor did he lose trust in God, who had furnished everything else he had foretold for their freedom and would not, even now, allow them to fall under their enemies' power, whether to be enslaved or destroyed. He stood among them and said: "It would be unjust to distrust men who have served us well up to now, on the ground that they will not prove the same toward what is to come; and to despair now of God's providence, from whom all that has happened to you through me has come to pass, beyond even your own expectation, for your deliverance and release from slavery, would be an act of madness.

"On the contrary, now that you find yourselves, as you think, without resource, you ought all the more to hope in God as your helper, since it is his doing that you have now been shut up in this narrow place, so that, delivering you from a plight where you believe there is no safety for yourselves and your enemies believe there is none for you either, he may display both his own power and his providence for you. For it is not on small matters that the divine grants its aid to those it favors, but on matters where human hope can see no way toward anything better. Trust, then, in such a helper, whose power can make small things great and can condemn to weakness even the mightiest strength, and do not be terrified by the Egyptians' array, nor despair of deliverance because the sea lies before you and the mountains behind allow no path of flight;

for even these, if God wills it, could become plains for you, and the sea dry land." Having said this, he led them toward the sea while the Egyptians looked on; for they were in plain sight, and being worn out by the toil of the pursuit, the Egyptians supposed it best to put off the battle until the next day. But when Moses had come to the shore, he took his staff and implored God, calling on him as ally and helper, and said: "You yourself are not unaware that it is beyond human strength or human contrivance for us to escape our present plight; but if there is any safety at all for the army that at your bidding left Egypt, it is yours to provide it.

We, having given up all other hope and device, take refuge in yours alone; and whatever may come from your providence able to snatch us from the Egyptians' wrath, we look for it. May it come quickly, revealing your power to us, and raising this people, fallen into despair, out of their dejection into good courage and confidence of deliverance. We are not without resource in what seems impossible, for the sea is yours, and yours the mountain that encloses us; at your command this can open, and that sea become dry land, and it is ours to escape even through the air, should it seem good to your might that we be saved in that way." Having called on God with these words, he struck the sea with his staff. And the sea, struck by the blow, drew back and withdrew into itself, leaving the ground bare and offering the Hebrews a way of escape.

Moses, seeing the manifestation of God and the sea withdrawn from its own bed to make way for them, was the first to step into it, and ordered the Hebrews to follow, making their way along a road opened by God's own hand, rejoicing at the danger now facing their enemies and giving thanks for a deliverance so unexpected, come from God himself. And when they no longer hesitated but pressed on eagerly, feeling that God was with them, the Egyptians at first thought them mad, rushing to their own manifest destruction; but when they saw them advancing unharmed for the most part, meeting no obstacle and no difficulty, they set out in pursuit, supposing that the sea would remain calm for them as well, and putting their cavalry in front, they went down into it. The Hebrews, while the Egyptians were still arming and spending time on this, had already reached the far shore unscathed, having made their escape;

and this made them the bolder in facing pursuit, since they now had nothing further to suffer. The Egyptians did not realize that the road had been made for the Hebrews alone, not for common use, and made only until those in danger should reach safety, not meant to serve those bent on their destruction as well. So when the whole Egyptian army was within the seabed, the sea rushed back again, and, driven by winds, came pouring down and closed in on the Egyptians on every side; rain fell from the sky, harsh thunder broke out with flashing lightning, and thunderbolts came down as well. In short there was nothing among all the disasters that come upon men through God's wrath that did not converge on them then; for a black and moonless night also overtook them.

And so they all perished in this way, so completely that not even a messenger of the disaster returned to those left behind. As for the Hebrews, they could not contain themselves for joy at their unlooked-for deliverance and at the destruction of their enemies, believing themselves now surely freed from those who had forced them into slavery, and now having such clear proof of God's help. Having thus escaped the danger themselves, and moreover having seen their enemies punished as no other men are recorded to have been before them, they spent the whole night in hymns and games, and Moses composed a song to God, containing his praise and thanksgiving for his favor, set in hexameter verse.

Now I have set down each of these things just as I found them in the sacred books; let no one be surprised at the strangeness of the account, if a way of deliverance through the sea was found for men of ancient times who had done no wrong, whether by God's will or by chance, since even for those around Alexander, king of Macedonia, men of only yesterday and the day before, the Pamphylian Sea withdrew and, when they had no other road, gave them a way through itself by which to overthrow the Persian empire, God so willing; and this is agreed by all who have written the history of Alexander's deeds. On these matters, then, let each judge as he thinks fit.

On the following day the weapons of the Egyptians were carried to the Hebrews' camp by the current and the force of the wind driving that way, and Moses, judging that this too had come about through God's providence, so that they should not lack weapons either, gathered them and, having armed the Hebrews with them, led them to Mount Sinai to sacrifice there to God and to render the thank-offerings of the people, just as he had been told to do.

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