Aggada -- Translations into English; Bible. Old Testament -- Legends; Jewish legends; Midrash -- Translations into English
Moses now recounted the ten temptations with which they tempted God:
how at the Red Sea they had repented having followed Him, and had even
turned back three stations on the way to Egypt; how even after the
miracle that clove the Red sea for them, they had so little faith in
God as to say, "Just as at this spot we passed unharmed through the Red
Sea, so also did the Egyptians in another part of it." At Marah and at
Rephidim they tried God on account of the dearth of water, and as they
twice rebelled against God on account of water, so also did they on
account of manna. They infringed upon the two laws God had given them
in regard to manna, storing it from one day to the next, and going to
gather it on the Sabbath, although God had strictly forbidden both. On
account of their lust for flesh also they twice transgressed, murmuring
for flesh at the same time as they received manna, although manna
completely satisfied their needs; and after God had granted their wish
and had sent them quails, they remains content for a short time only,
and then again demanded quails, until God granted them that wish also.
"But the worst of all," Moses told them, "was the worship of the Golden
Calf. And not only that, but again in Paran, misled by the spies, ye
transgressed in desiring to make an idol, and under its guidance to
return to Egypt."
Moses then pointed out to them that it was owing to their sin that they
had strayed about in the desert for forty years, for otherwise God
would have brought them to Palestine on the same day as He had led them
out of Egypt. He not only reproached Israel with the sins they had
committed against God, but also with the evil they had worked Moses
himself, mentioning how they had thrown their infants into his lap,
saying, "What food hast thou for these?" [708] On this occasion it was
evident how good and pious a nation was that before Moses, for all the
sins he enumerated to them had been committed not by them, but by their
fathers, all of whom had in the meantime died, yet they were silent,
and made no answer to this severe reprimand their leader gave them.
[709] Moses did not, however, merely admonish the people to walk in the
ways of the Lord, but he said to Israel: "I am near to death, Whosoever
hath learned from me a verse, a chapter, or a law, let him come to me
and learn it anew," whereupon he repeated all the Torah, [710] and
that, too, in the seventy languages of the world, that not Israel alone
but all the heathen peoples, too, might hear the teachings of God.
[711]
BALAK, KING OF MOAB
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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