from useful actions, as our prophets have explained to us, and have said: They walked after vain things that do not profit.6* Jeremiah says: Surely our fathers have inherited lies, vanity, and things wherein there is no profit.65 Consider how great was the extent of this corruption and whether or not it was fitting to spend one’s efforts on putting an end to this. Most of the commandments serve, therefore, as we have made clear, to put an end to these opinions and to lighten the great and oppressive burdens, the toil and the fatigue, that those people imposed upon themselves in their cult. Accordingly every commandment or prohibition of the Law whose reason is hidden from you constitutes a cure for one of those diseases, which today— thank God — we do not know any more. This is what should be believed by one who is endowed with perfection and knows the true meaning of His dictum, may He be exalted: I said not unto the seed of Jacob, Seek ye Me for nothing.66 6i. Exod. 34:16. 62. Literally: which I have heard from books.
63. Cf. Isa. 49:4.
64. Jer. 2:8. The text of Jeremiah reads: They walked after things that do not profit. Maimonides may also have had in mind the passage in I Sam. 12:21. Cf. Ill 29, n. 23.
120 b] The Guide of the Perplexed III - 50 6ij I have now dealt one by one with all the commandments included in these classes and we have drawn attention to the reasons for them. There are only a few and some slight details for which I have not given reasons, even though in truth we have virtually given reasons also for these to him who is attentive and comprehending. | CHAPTER 50 CHAPTER 50 There are also things that belong to the mysteries of the Torah, which have caused many people to stumble. Accordingly they ought to be explained. These are the stories recounted in the Torah the telling of which is thought to be useless, as for instance the account of the branching out of tribes from Noah and of their names and dwelling places,1 likewise the sons of Secir the Horde2 and the account of the kings that reigned in the land of Edom 3 and the like. You know the saying of [the Sages] that the impious Manasseh occupied his vile council with nothing but criticism of such passages. They say:+ He used to sit there and interpret Scripture by means of blasphemous haggadoth. Thus he said: Moses did not have to write: And the sister of Lotan was Timna, and so on.5 As for me I shall inform you of a general principle, and then I shall come back to the details as I did with regard to the reasons for the commandments.
Know that all the stories that you will find mentioned in the Torah occur there for a necessary utility for the Law; either they give a correct notion of an opinion that is a pillar of the Law, or they rectify some action so that mutual wrongdoing and aggression should not occur between men. I shall set this forth to you in an orderly fashion.
As it is a pillar of the Law that the world was produced in time, that at first a single individual of the human species, namely, Adam, was created, and that approximately two thousand five hundred years elapsed between Adam and Moses our Master, men, if they were given this information only, would rapidly have begun to have doubts in those times. For people were to be found scattered up to the ends of the whole earth; there were j different tribes and different and very dissimilar languages. These doubts were put to an end through an exposition of the genealogy of all of them 5. Gen. 36: 22.
614 The Guide of the Perplexed III -50 [121a and of their branching by mentioning the names of the famous men among them — such and such, the son of such and such — and their ages and by giving the facts regarding their habitats and the reason that necessitated their being scattered up to the ends of the earth and their languages being different in spite of their having at first dwelt in one place and having had all of them one language, a fact that was a necessary consequence of their being the children of a single individual.
In the same way the story of the Flood and the story of Sodom and Gomorrah were recounted in order to bring proof for the following correct opinion: Verily there is a reward for the righteous,• verily there is a God that judgeth on the earth? In the same way the relation of that war of the nine kings is made with a view to making known to us the miracle consisting in the victory of Abraham, accompanied by a small number of men having no king with them, over four great kings. It also gives us knowledge of his defense of his relative because of the latter’s sharing his belief, and of his exposing himself to the dangers of war until he saved him. It also gives us knowledge of how moderate and easily satisfied he was, of his contempt for acquisition, and of his striving for moral nobility. This is expressed by his saying: From a thread even to a shoe-latchet, and so on.1 The enumeration of the tribes of the children of Secir and of their individual genealogy8 is made with a view to one single commandment,• for He, may He be exalted, has commanded exterminating only the seed of c Amaleq. Now r~ Amaleq was the son of Eliphaz and Timna the sister of Lotan? He did not command killing the other children of Esau. Now Esau was connected by marriage with the children of SeHr, as is set forth in the text}10 he had issue from them and reigned over them, and his descendants mingled with theirs. Consequently the whole land of SeHr and those tribes were called after the predominant tribe — namely, the children of Esau — and particularly the descendants of | c Amaleq, for they were the bravest among them. Accordingly if there had been no explanation concerning these genealogies and their particulars, all of them would have been killed through neglectfulness. Consequently Scripture explained their tribes and said that those whom you see today in SeHr and the kingdom of c Amaleq are not all of them children of z Amaleq, but some of them are descendants of this or that individual and are only called after c Amaleq because the latter’s mother belonged to them. All this was an act of justice on the part of God lest a tribe be killed indiscriminately in the course of the extermination of another 9. Cf. Gen. 36:12 and 22. 10. Cf. Gen. 36:25.
121 b] The Guide of the Perplexed III • 50 613 tribe. For the Decree was only directed against the descendants of cAmaleq, and we have already explained in what way wisdom is manifested therein.11 The reason for [Scripture’s] enumeration of the kings that reigned in the land of Edom 12 is the fact that according to one of the commandments: Thou mayest not set a foreigner over thee, who is not thy brother,13 Now not one of the kings that are enumerated is from Edom. Do you not see that it sets forth their genealogy and their country? — this one was from this place and that one from that place. In my opinion it is probable that their conduct and their histories were generally known — I mean the conduct of those kings of Edom, and that they tyrannized over the children of Esau and humiliated them. Accordingly in mentioning them, it says as it were: Consider your brethren, the children of Esau, whose kings were this one and that one — whose actions were generally known. For no individual has ever been the chief of a religious community to whose race he did not belong, without doing it great or small injury.
To sum up: Just as, according to what I have told you, the doctrines of the Sabians are remote from us today,14 the chronicles of those times are likewise hidden from us today. Hence if we knew them and were cognizant of the events that happened in those days, we would know in detail the reasons of many things mentioned in the Torah.
You should also understand that the status | of things that are set down in writing is not the same as the status of happenings that one sees. For in happenings that one sees, there are particulars that bring about necessary consequences of great importance, which cannot be mentioned except in a prolix manner. Accordingly, when narrations concerning these happenings are considered, the individual who reflects thinks that such narrations are too long or repetitious. If, however, he had seen what is narrated, he would know the necessity of what is recounted. Hence when you see narrations in the Torah that do not belong to the Law and think that it was not necessary to set down such and such a narration or that it is too long or repetitious, the reason for this is that you have not seen the particulars that necessitated that the story be told in the manner it is.
Of this kind is the enumeration of the stations [of the Children of Israel in the desert]. Apparently this is an enumeration that is quite useless. Because of this false fancy, which first comes to the mind, it says: And Moses wrote their goings forth, according to their stations, by the commandment of the Lord.15 Now the need for this was very great. For all miracles are certain ii. Cf. Ill 41. 12. Gen. 36:31. 13. Deut. 17:15. 14. Cf. Ill 49.
15. Num. 53:2.
6z6 The Guide of the Perplexed III • 50 [ 122a in the opinion of one who has seen them; however, at a future time their story becomes a mere traditional narrative, and there is a possibility for the hearer to consider it untrue. It is well known that it is impossible and incon¬ ceivable that a miracle lasts permanently throughout the succession of generations so that all men can see it. Now one of the miracles of the Law, and one of the greatest among them, is the sojourn of Israel for forty years in the desert and the finding of the manna there every day. For that desert was, as is stated in Scripture, a place wherein were serpents, fiery serpents, and scorpions, and thirsty ground where there was no water. 1 6 Those are places that are very remote from cultivated land and unnatural for man; it is no place of seed or of figs or of vines or of pomegranates, and so on}1 It is also said of it that it is a land that no man passed through, and so on}8 The text of the Torah states: Ye have not eaten bread, | neither have ye drunk wine or strong drink, and so on.19 All these are manifest visible miracles. Now God, may He be exalted, knew that in the future what happens to traditional narratives would happen to those miracles: People would think that [the Children of Israel] sojourned in a desert that was near to cultivated land and in which man can live, like the deserts inhabited at present by the Arabs, or that it consisted of places in which it was possible to till and to reap or to feed on plants that were to be found there, or that it was natural for the manna always to come down in those places, or that there were wells of water in those places. Therefore all these fancies are rebutted and the traditional relation of all these miracles is confirmed through the enumera¬ tion of those stations, so that men to come could see them and thus know how great was the miracle constituted by the sojourn of the human species in those places for forty years. For the same reason Joshua cursed him who would ever build up Jericho,29 so that this miracle should subsist per¬ manently. For whoever would see the wall sunk in the ground, would clearly understand that such cannot be the aspect of a demolished building, but that this building sank through a miracle.
Similarly also its dictum, At the commandment of the Lord they pitched and at the commandment of the Lord they journeyed,2i might suffice for the narrative; and it might appear, when one thinks about it at first, that every¬ thing dealing with this subject that comes afterwards is needless expatiation on the matter — I refer to its saying: And when the cloud tarried long, and so on.22 And so it was when the cloud was, and so on.21 Or whether it were two days, and so on.2* I shall inform you of the reason for all those particulars being given. The reason is that this story was to be confirmed with a view to the destruction of the opinion held at that time and even up to now by the religious communities, that [the Children of] Israel lost their way and did not know where they were going — just as it is said [in Scripture:] They are perplexed | in the land 25 Thus the Arabs at present designate it — I mean the desert — as al-Tlh, thinking that [the Children of] Israel lost their way [tahu] and did not know the road. Scripture accordingly is engaged in expounding and corroborating the fact that those irregular stations, the return to some of them, and the difference between the lengths of their staying at every station — so that they stayed at one station eighteen years,26 at another one day, and at a third one night27 — were all of them deter¬ mined by divine decree and that this was not due to their having lost their way, but depended on the rising of the pillar of cloud. Therefore all these particulars are given. The Torah has already made it clear that that stretch of road was short, known, much frequented, that it was by no means unknown; I refer to the stretch between Horeb — where they betook them¬ selves with a certain purpose according to what He, may He be exalted, has commanded: Ye shall serve God upon this mountain28 — and Kadesh-Barnea — where the cultivated land begins according to the text: Behold we are now in Kadesh, a city in the uttermost of thy border 22 The length of this stretch is an eleven days’ march, according to what it says: Eleven days' journey from Horeb by the way of Mount Secir unto Kadesh-Barnea.50 This is not a road in which one may err for forty years. The reason for their tarrying are the causes literally stated in the Torah.
In a similar way whenever the cause for a story’s being narrated is hidden from thee, there is a strong reason for that story. Apply to the whole matter the principle to which [the Sages], may their memory be blessed, have drawn our attention: For it is no vain thing from you81 — And if it is vain, it is so because of you?2 | 24. Num. 9:22. 25. Exod. 14:3. 26. Cf. Seder c01am Rabbah, VIII.
CHAPTER 51 This chapter that we bring now does not include additional matter over and above what is comprised in the other chapters of this Treatise. It is only a kind of a conclusion, at the same time explaining the worship as practiced by one who has apprehended the true realities peculiar only to Him after he has obtained an apprehension of what He is 5 and it also guides him toward achieving this worship, which is the end of man, and makes known to him how providence watches over him in this habitation until he is brought over to the bundle of life} I shall begin the discourse in this chapter with a parable that I shall compose for you. I say then: The ruler is in his palace, and all his subjects are partly within the city and partly outside the city. Of those who are within the city, some have turned their backs upon the ruler’s habitation, their faces being turned another way. Others seek to reach the ruler’s habitation, turn toward it, and desire to enter it and to stand before him, but up to now they have not yet seen the wall of the habitation. Some of those who seek to reach it have come up to the habitation and walk around it searching for its gate. Some of them have entered the gate and walk about in the antechambers. Some of them have entered the inner court of the habitation and have come to be with the king, in one and the same place with him, namely, in the ruler’s habitation. But their having come into the inner part of the habitation does not mean that they see the ruler or speak to him. For after their coming into the inner part of the habitation, it is indispensable that they should make another effort 5 then they will be in the presence of the ruler, see him from afar or from nearby, or | hear the ruler’s speech or speak to him.
Now I shall interpret to you this parable that I have invented. I say then: Those who are outside the city are all human individuals who have no doctrinal belief, neither one based on speculation nor one that accepts the authority of tradition: such individuals as the furthermost Turks found in the remote North, the Negroes found in the remote South, and those who resemble them from among them that are with us in these climes. The status of those is like that of irrational animals. To my mind they do not have the rank of men, but have among the beings a rank lower than the rank of man but higher than the rank of the apes. For they have the external shape 1. Cf. I Sam. 25:29. According to the commentators, these words refer to eternal life.
124 a ] The Guide of the Perplexed III • 51 d/p and lineaments of a man and a faculty of discernment that is superior to that of the apes.
Those who are within the city, but have turned their backs upon the ruler’s habitation, are people who have opinions and are engaged in specula¬ tion, but who have adopted incorrect opinions either because of some great error that befell them in the course of their speculation or because of their following the traditional authority of one who had fallen into error. Accord¬ ingly because of these opinions, the more these people walk, the greater is their distance from the ruler’s habitation. And they are far worse than the first. They are those concerning whom necessity at certain times impels killing them and blotting out the traces of their opinions lest they should lead astray the ways of others.
Those who seek to reach the ruler’s habitation and to enter it, but never see the ruler’s habitation, are the multitude of the adherents of the Law, I refer to the ignoramuses who observe the commandments.
Those who have come up to the habitation and walk around it are the jurists who believe true opinions on the basis of traditional authority and study the law concerning the practices of divine service, but do not engage in speculation concerning the fundamental principles of religion and make no inquiry whatever regarding | the rectification of belief.
Those who have plunged into speculation concerning the fundamental principles of religion, have entered the antechambers. People there in¬ dubitably have different ranks. He, however, who has achieved demonstra¬ tion, to the extent that that is possible, of everything that may be demonstrated 5 and who has ascertained in divine matters, to the extent that that is possible, everything that may be ascertained; and who has come close to certainty in those matters in which one can only come close to it — has come to be with the ruler in the inner part of the habitation.
Know, my son, that as long as you are engaged in studying the mathe¬ matical sciences and the art of logic, you are one of those who walk around the house searching for its gate, as [the Sages], may their memory be blessed, have said resorting to a parable: Ben Zoma is still outside } If, however, you have understood the natural things, you have entered the habitation and are walking in the antechambers. If, however, you have achieved perfection in the natural things and have understood divine science, you have entered in the ruler’s place into the inner court and are with him in one habitation. This is the rank of the men of science; they, however, are of different grades of perfection.
£,20 The Guide of the Perplexed III • 51 [ 1246 There are those who set their thought to work after having attained perfection in the divine science, turn wholly toward God, may He be cherished and held sublime, renounce what is other than He, and direct all the acts of their intellect toward an examination of the beings with a view to drawing from them proof with regard to Him, so as to know His governance of them in whatever way it is possible. These people are those who are present in the ruler’s council. This is the rank of the prophets. Among them there is he3 who because of the greatness of his apprehension and his renouncing everything that is other than God, may He be exalted, has attained such a degree that it is said of him, And he was there with the Lord* putting questions and receiving answers, speaking and being spoken to, in that holy place. And because of his great joy | in that which he appre¬ hended, he did neither eat bread nor drink water} For his intellect attained such strength that all the gross faculties in the body ceased to function. I refer to the various kinds of the sense of touch. Some prophets could only see, some of them from close by and some from afar, as [a prophet] says: From afar the Lord appeared unto me} The various degrees of prophecy have already been discussed by us.7 Let us now return to the subject of this chapter, which is to confirm men in the intention to set their thought to work on God alone after they have achieved knowledge of Him, as we have explained. This is the worship peculiar to those who have apprehended the true realities 5 the more they think of Him and of being with Him, the more their worship increases.
As for someone who thinks and frequently mentions God, without knowledge, following a mere imagining or following a belief adopted because of his reliance on the authority of somebody else, he is to my mind outside the habitation and far away from it and does not in true reality mention or think about God. For that thing which is in his imagination and which he mentions in his speech8 does not correspond to any being at all and has merely been invented by his imagination, as we have explained in our discourse concerning the attributes.9 This kind of worship ought only to be engaged in after intellectual conception has been achieved. If, however, you have apprehended God and His acts in accordance with what is required by the intellect, you should afterwards engage in totally devoting yourself to Him, endeavor to come closer to Him, and strengthen the bond between you and Him — that is, the intellect. Thus it says: Unto thee it was shown, that thou mightest know that the Lord, and so on-10 and it says: Know this day, 3. Or: there are those. 4. Exod. 34:28. 5. Exod. 34:28. 6. Jer. 31:3.
7. Cf. II 43. 8. Literally: in his mouth. 9. Cf. I 50. 10. Deut. 4:35.
125^3 The Guide of the Perplexed III • 51 621 and lay it to thy heart, and so on,-11 and it says: Know ye that the Lord He is God.12 The Torah has made it clear that this last worship to which we have drawn attention in this chapter can only be engaged in after apprehension has been achieved; | it says: To love the Lord your God, and to serve Him with all your heart and with all your soul.1* Now we have made it clear several times14 that love is proportionate to apprehension. After love comes this worship to which attention has also been drawn by [the Sages], may their memory be blessed, who said: This is the worship in the heart.1* In my opinion it consists in setting thought to work on the first intelligible and in devoting oneself exclusively to this as far as this is within one’s capacity. Therefore you will find that David exhorted Solomon and fortified him in these two things, I mean his endeavor to apprehend Him and his endeavor to worship Him after apprehension has been achieved. He said: And thou, Solomon my son, know thou the God of thy father and serve Him, and so on. If thou seek Him, He will be found of thee, and so on.16 The exhortation always refers to intellectual apprehensions, not to imagination; for thought concerning imaginings is not called knowledge but that which cometh into your mind.11 Thus it is clear that after apprehension, total devotion to Him and the employment of intellectual thought in constantly loving Him should be aimed at. Mostly this is achieved in solitude and isolation. Hence every excellent man stays frequently in solitude and does not meet anyone unless it is necessary.
A call to attention. We have already made it clear to you18 that that intellect which overflowed from Him, may He be exalted, toward us is the bond between us and Him. You have the choice: if you wish to strengthen and to fortify this bond,19 you can do so; if, however, you wish gradually to make it weaker and feebler until you cut it, you can also do that. You can only strengthen this bond by employing it in loving Him and in progressing toward this, just as we have explained. And it is made weaker and feebler if you busy your thought with what is other than He. Know that even if you were the man who knew most the true reality of the divine science, you would cut that bond existing between you and God if you would empty your thought [ of God and busy yourself totally in eating the necessary or in occupying yourselves with the necessary. You would not be with Him then, nor He with you. For that relation between you and Him is actually broken off at that time. It is for this reason that excellent men begrudge the 18. Cf. II 12 and 37. ig. I.e., the intellect.
6 22 The Guide of the Perplexed III • 51 [ 126a times in which they are turned away from Him by other occupations and warn against this, saying: Do not let God be absent from your thought,20 And David says: I have set the Lord always before me,• because He is at my right hand, I shall not bend down;21 he means to say: I do not empty my thought of Him, and it is as if He were my right hand from which, because of the rapidity of its motion, my attention is not distracted even for an instant, and therefore I do not bend down — that is, I do not fall.
Know that all the practices of the worship, such as reading the Torah, prayer, and the performance of the other commandments, have only the end of training you to occupy yourself with His commandments, may He be exalted, rather than with matters pertaining to this world 5 you should act as if you were occupied with Him, may He be exalted, and not with that which is other than He. If, however, you pray merely by moving your lips while facing a wall, and at the same time think about your buying and selling; or if you read the Torah with your tongue while your heart is set upon the building of your habitation and does not consider what you read; and similarly in all cases in which you perform a commandment merely with your limbs — as if you were digging a hole in the ground or hewing wood in the forest — without reflecting either upon the meaning of that action or upon Him from whom the commandment proceeds or upon the end of the action, you should not think that you have achieved the end. Rather you will then be similar to those of whom it is said: Thou art near in their mouth, and far from their reins.22