(7) Afterwards the pillar of fire, which accompanied them (for it went before them as a guide), conducted the Hebrews by night through an untrodden region, training and bracing them, by toils and hardships, to manliness and endurance, that after their experience of what appeared formidable difficulties, the benefits of the land, to which from the trackless desert he was conducting them, might become apparent. Furthermore, he put to flight and slew the hostile occupants of the land, falling upon them from a desert and rugged line of march (such was the excellence of his generalship). For the taking of the land of those hostile tribes was a work of skill and strategy.

(89) And the wolves began to fear them, and they oppressed them until they destroyed their little ones, and they cast their young into a river of much water: but those sheep began to cry aloud on account of their little ones, and to complain unto their Lord.

(5) And towns and towers by toil of ill-starred men He raised. Then to the Hebrew race proclaimed, That each male child should in deep-flowing Nile Be drowned. My mother bore and hid me then Three months (so afterwards she told). Then took, And me adorned with fair array, and placed On the deep sedgy marsh by Nilus bank, While Miriam, my sister, watched afar.

(89) And when they saw the Lord of the sheep, they turned to flee before His face, but that sea gathered itself together, and became as it had been created, and the water swelled and rose till it covered those wolves.

(12) Then the Egyptians, oft admonished, continued unwise; and the Hebrews were spectators of the calamities that others suffered, learning in safety the power of God. And when the Egyptians gave no heed to the effects of that power, through their foolish infatuation disbelieving, then, as is said, "the children knew" what was done; and the Hebrews afterwards going forth, departed carrying much spoil from the Egyptians, not for avarice, as the cavillers say, for God did not persuade them to covet what belonged to others. But, in the first place, they took wages for the services they had rendered the Egyptians all the time; and then in a way recompensed the Egyptians, by afflicting them in requital as avaricious, by the abstraction of the booty, as they had done the Hebrews by enslaving them. Whether, then, as may be alleged is done in war, they thought it proper, in the exercise of the rights of conquerors, to take away the property of their enemies, as those who have gained the day do from those who are worsted (and there was just cause of hostilities. The Hebrews came as suppliants to the Egyptians on account of famine; and they, reducing their guests to slavery, compelled them to serve them after the manner of captives, giving them no recompense); or as in peace, took the spoil as wages against the will of those who for a long period had given them no recompense, but rather had robbed them, [it is all one.]

(6) Now, the Greeks had the advantage of receiving from Moses all these, and the knowledge of how to make use of each of them. And, for the sake of example, I shall cite one or two instances of leadership. Moses, on leading the people forth, suspecting that the Egyptians would pursue, left the short and direct route, and turned to the desert, and marched mostly by night. For it was another kind of arrangement by which the Hebrews were trained in the great wilderness, and for a protracted time, to belief in the existence of one God alone, being inured by the wise discipline of endurance to which they were subjected. The strategy of Moses, therefore, shows the necessity of discerning what will be of service before the approach of dangers, and so to encounter them. It turned out precisely as he suspected, for the Egyptians pursued with horses and chariots, but were quickly destroyed by the sea breaking on them and overwhelming them with their horses and chariots, so that not a remnant of them was left.

(26) Now if Man awakens Sin, then the fierce Anger [or severity] of God is stirred in himself, viz. in Man, which otherwise (if Man stood in Humility) would rest and be turned into great Joy, as was often mentioned before. But now when he burns [in Wrath,] then one People devours the other, and one Sin destroys another. If Israel had been upright, they had not been put to make War, but they should have entered in with Wonders, and have converted the People; Moses should have led them into the [promised Land] with his [Miracles] or Deeds of Wonder. But because they were wicked, they could not enter in (with the brightness of Moses, with Deeds of Wonder, in the Luster [or Glance] of the Father) to convert the Heathens; but Moses (with his Deeds of Wonder) must stay in the Wilderness, and the whole People was consumed and devoured in the Wrath; and Joshua must war with the Heathens, and destroy them, for one

(89) And all the cattle of that enclosure were gathered together until I saw how they sank and were swallowed up and perished in that water.

(31) And between these two mighty armies Thus, too, in the second generation lived pure Abel; In like manner these two standards of right and wrong Nimrod was the opponent and adversary of Abraham, When God grew weary of the length of this war, He commanded fire and its flaming torment Age after age these two parties contended, Between these two the war was waged for years, And when it passed all bounds and affliction increased God made the water of the Nile a judge between them,

(24) Therefore he said to Joshua, Pass over Jordan and destroy that People; and leave none of them among you, that you be not polluted. This (Saying of his) proceeded not out of his Love, when he bid him kill the Heathens; as also the Prophets did not all speak from his Love, but from his Anger, which was awakened by the Wickedness of Man; so also he speaks many Times through the Spirit of the Prophets in the great World (in the Prophets and in Moses) in the Fire, or in other Terrors, in an angry Zeal.

(89) But that vessel floated on the water, while all the oxen and elephants and camels and asses sank to the bottom with all the animals, so that I could no longer see them, and they were not able to escape, (but) perished and sank into the depths.

(89) And I saw till all the wolves who pursued those sheep perished and were drowned.

(89) And that sea was divided, and the water stood on this side and on that before their face, and their Lord led them and placed Himself between them and the wolves.

(28) Then God (out of the Fierceness of the first Principle) burnt Sodom and Gomorrah, those five Kingdoms, with Fire, for then God promised the chosen Generation, that if they would walk before him, he would bless them as the Stars of Heaven, and make them so great [that they should not be numbered,] and yet there were still among them evil Birds hatched. And then God brought them into a strange Land, and prospered them, to try whether they would acknowledge his Goodness, and depend on him, but they were yet worse.

(4) They say to Sakla, "What is the power of these people who stood in your presence, who were taken from the seed of Ham and Japheth, who number four hundred thousand? They were received into another realm from which they came, and they overturned all the glory of your power and the dominion of your hand. The seed of Noah through his sons has done your will, and so have all the powers in the realms over which your might rules. Both those people and those who reside in their glory have not done your will. But they have turned aside your whole throng."