Then answered the old man, “We must separate. But before we part, I will explain what I have done. The ship which I injured belongs to a poor family. If it had sailed, it would have fallen into the hands of pirates. The injury I did can be easily repaired, and the delay will save the vessel for those worthy people who own her. The child I killed had a bad disposition, and it would have corrupted its parents. In its place God will give them pious children. The house which I repaired belongs to orphans, whose father was a man of substance. It has been let to unworthy people. Under the wall is hidden a treasure. Had the tenants mended the wall, they would have found and kept the treasure. Now the wall will stand till its legitimate owners come into the house, when they will find the treasure. Thou seest I have not acted blindly and foolishly.”
Moses asked pardon of the prophet, and he returned to his people in the wilderness.[547]
The same story, with some variation in the incidents, is related in the Talmud.
God, seeing Moses uneasy, called him to the summit of a mountain, and deigned to explain to him how He governed the world. He bade the prophet look upon the earth. He saw a fountain flowing at the foot of the mountain. A soldier went to it to drink. A young man came next to the fountain, and finding a purse of gold, which the soldier had left there by accident, he kept it and went his way.
The soldier, having lost his purse, returned to search for it, and demanded it of an old man whom he found seated by the spring. The old man protested that he had not found it, and called God to witness the truth of his assertion. But the soldier disbelieving him, drew his sword upon him and killed him.
Moses was filled with horror. But God said to him: “Be not surprised at this event; this old man had murdered the father of the soldier; the soldier would have wasted the money in riotous living; in the hands of the youth it will serve to nourish his aged parents, who are dying of poverty.”[548]
10. THE MISSION OF THE SPIES. (Numb. xiii. xiv.)
And the Lord spake with Moses, saying, “Send thou keen-sighted men men who may explore the land of Canaan, which I will give to the children of Israel; one man for each tribe of their fathers shalt thou send from the presence of all their leaders.”
And Moses sent them from the wilderness of Paran; all of them acute men, who had been appointed heads over the sons of Israel. And Moses said to them, “Go up on this side by the south, and ascend the mountain, and survey the country, what it is, and the people who dwell in it; whether they be strong or weak, few or many; what the land is in which they dwell, whether good or bad; what the cities they inhabit, whether they live in towns that are open or walled; and the reputation of the land, whether its productions are rich or poor, and the trees of it be fruitful or not; and do valiantly, and bring back some of the fruit of the land.”
And the day on which they went was the nineteenth of the month Sivan, about the days of the first grapes. They came to the stream of the grapes in Eshkol, and cut from thence a branch, with one cluster of grapes, and carried it on a rod between two men; and also of the pomegranates, and of the figs; and the wine dropped from them like a stream.[549]