[116] Put away then with all thy might what may make thee well pleasing to the rulers of the prison, but desire exceedingly and with all zeal what may make thee pleasing to the Cause. But if so be that this is beyond thy powers—so vast is the greatness of His dignity—set thy face and betake thee to His Potencies and make thyself their suppliant, till they accept the constancy and fidelity of thy service, and appoint thee to take thy place amongst those in whom they are well pleased, even as they appointed Noah; of whose descendants Moses has given a genealogy of a truly strange and novel sort.
[117] For he says, “these are the generations of Noah. Noah was a just man, perfect in his generation, Noah was well pleasing to God” (Gen. 6:9). The offspring indeed of creatures compounded of soul and body, must also themselves be compound; horses necessarily beget horses, lions beget lions, bulls beget bulls, and so too with men.
[118] Not such are the offspring proper to a good mind; but they are the virtues mentioned in the text, the fact that he was a man, that he was just, that he was perfect, that he was well pleasing to God. And this last as being the consummation of these virtues, and the definition of supreme happiness, is put at the end of them all.
[119] Now one form of generation is the process by which things are drawn and journey so to speak from non-existence to existence, and this process is that which is always necessarily followed by plants and animals. But there is also another which consists in the change from the higher genus to the lower species, and this it is which Moses had in mind when he says, “But these are the generations of Jacob. Joseph was seventeen years old, keeping sheep with his brethren, being still young, with the sons of Bilhah and with the sons of Zelpah, his father’s wives” (Gen. 37:2).
[120] For when this reason, once so diligent of practice and filled with love of learning, is brought down from diviner concepts to human and mortal opinions, then at once Joseph is born, Joseph who follows in the train of the body and bodily things. He is still young, even though length of years may have made him grey-headed; for never have there come to his knowledge the thoughts or lessons of riper age, which those who are ranked as members of the company of Moses have learnt, and found in them a treasure and a joy most profitable to themselves and to those who hold converse with them.
[121] It is for this reason, I think, because he wished to portray Joseph’s image and the exact form of his character in a clearer way, that Moses represents him as keeping sheep, not with any true-born brother, but with the base-born, the sons of the concubines, who are designated by the lower parentage, which is traced to the women, and not by the higher, which is traced to the men. For they are in this instance called the sons of the women Bilhah and Zilpah but not the sons of their father Israel.