XVII. (89) But the sons of the musicians have accurately and carefully investigated the question respecting the decade; and the most sacred Moses has composed a hymn, with no slight degree of skill, attributing the most excellent things to this number of the decade, such as prayers, first-fruits, the continual and unceasing offerings of the priests, the observance of the passover, the atonement, {14}{#le 23:27.} the remission of debts, and the return to the ancient allotments of property at the end of every fifty years; {15}{#le 25:9.} the preparation and furnishing of the indissoluble tabernacle, {16}{#ex 26:1.} and ten thousand other things which it would take a long time to enumerate. However, we must not pass over the most important points. (90) In the first place he represents Noah to us (and this man is the first who is specially entitled just, in the holy scriptures), as the tenth in succession from him who was formed out of the earth, not intending by this statement to indicate the number of years that had elapsed, but rather to show clearly that as the decade is the most perfect boundary and end of the numbers which proceed onwards from the unit, so also just in the soul is the perfection and true end of the actions of human life. (91) For the number three when multiplied by itself so as to make nine, the oracles have pronounced to be the most warlike of numbers; but when one is added to it so as to complete the number ten, then they receive it as a friendly one. (92) And as a proof of this, they allege the kingdoms of the nine kings, {17}{#ge 14:1.} (when the civil war was fanned into a flame, the four passions rising up against the five outward senses, and when the entire soul, like a city, was in danger of being subjected to an utter overthrow and destruction,) which the wise Abraham, appearing as the tenth king, put an end to, by joining in the warfare. (93) He then caused a calm instead of a storm, and health instead of disease, and life, if one may speak the plain truth, instead of death, showing himself as the trophy-bearer of God who giveth the victory, to whom also he consecrated the tenths as a grateful offering on account of his victory. (94) Moreover, he also separates off the tenth of all the cattle which come “under the Rod,”{18}{#le 27:32.} I mean by this under instruction, and of all those which are of a tame and tractable sort, pronouncing them to be holy by an express provision of the law. In order that so, by many concurrent testimonies, we may learn the particular and especial appropriateness of the number ten to God, and of the number nine to our mortal race.
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