CHAPTER 28

Foot [regel] is an equivocal term. It is a term denoting a foot.¹ Thus: Foot for foot.² It also occurs with the meaning of following. Thus: Go thee out and all the people that are in thy feet³—the meaning of which is, that follow thee. It is likewise used in the sense of causation. Thus: And the Lord hath blessed thee for my foot⁴—I being the cause, that is to say, for my sake. For when a thing [31a] exists for the sake of some other thing, the latter is the cause of the former. This meaning is frequently employed. Thus: For the foot of the cattle that goeth before me and for the foot of the children.5 Accordingly when Scripture says: And His feet shall stand in that day upon the Mount of Olives,⁶ it signifies thereby the establishment of the things He has caused⁷—I mean of the wonders that will then become manifest at that place⁸ and of which God, may He be exalted, is the cause, I mean the maker. This interpretation was adopted by Jonathan ben Uziel, peace be on him. He translates:⁹ And He will manifest Himself in His might on that day upon the Mount of Olives. In a similar way he translates every part of the body having the function of grasping or moving by the terms His might, for all of them are intended to signify actions proceeding from God’s will. Now as for its dictum: And there was under his feet, as it were, a work of the whiteness of sapphire stone.10 The interpretation of Onqelos is, as you know, as follows. He considers that the third person suffix, “his,”¹¹ in the words his feet refers to God’s throne; accordingly he translates: And under the throne of His glory. Understand this and admire how far Onqelos was from belief in the corporeality of God and from everything that leads to it even though it be by the longest way. For he does not say: And under His throne. For should the term throne have been referred to God in the sense that has been explained above, this would have entailed the consequence that He would have been conceived of as sitting upon a body and thus would have entailed the belief in corporeality. Accordingly [Onqelos] referred the term throne to His glory, I mean to the Indwelling,¹² which is a created light. Similarly he renders in his translation the verse: For my hand upon the throne of the Lord,¹³ as: From God whose Indwelling is on the throne of glory. And in a similar way you find on the tongue of the whole nation the words: the throne of glory.

We have gone beyond the subject of the chapter in order to deal with a matter that will be made clear in other chapters. I shall now return to the subject of this chapter. As for the interpretation of Onqelos, you already know it. However, the final end of the matter¹⁴ consists in the rejection of the doctrine of the corporeality of God. He does not explain to us what they apprehended¹⁵ and what is intended by this parable. He acts in a similar way in all other passages; that is to say, he is not concerned with such significations, [31b] but only with the rejection of the doctrine of the corporeality of God. For this rejection is a matter of demonstration and is necessary in belief.16 Therefore he made a decision about it and translated accordingly. On the other hand the explanation of the meaning of parables is a suppositious matter, for their intention may be this or that. They are also most hidden matters, and it is not a part of the foundations of belief¹⁷ to understand them, nor are they easily grasped by the multitude. Hence [Onqelos] did not concern himself with their signification.

As for us, it certainly is incumbent upon me in accordance with the purpose of this Treatise to interpret something of this parable. I shall accordingly say that when it says, under His feet, it intends to signify: He being the cause and because of Him, as we have already explained. For what they apprehended18 was the true reality of first matter, which derives from Him, may He be exalted, He being the cause of its existence. Consider its dictum: As it were, a work of the whiteness of sapphire stone. If the intended signification had been the color, it would have said: As it were, the whiteness of sapphire stone. The word work was added, because Matter, as you know, is always receptive and passive, if one considers its essence, and is not active except by accident. Form, on the other hand, is in its essence always active, as has been made clear in the books on natural science, and is passive only by accident. That is why Scripture applied to the first matter the expression: as it were, a work. As for the whiteness of sapphire stone, the expression is intended to signify transparency and not a white color. For the whiteness of a crystal¹⁹ is not due to a white color, but solely to its transparency. And, as has been demonstrated in the books on natural science, transparency is not a color; for if it were a color, it would not let all the colors be seen behind it and would not receive all of them.²⁰ Now a transparent body receives all the colors in succession just because it lacks a color of its own. In this it resembles the first matter, which in respect of its true reality lacks all forms and on this account is capable of receiving all forms in succession. Accordingly [32b] their apprehension21 had as its object the first matter and the relation of the latter to God, inasmuch as it is the first among the things He has created that necessitates generation and corruption; and God is its creator ex nihilo.²² A disquisition on this notion will come further on.²³ Know that you require such an interpretation even according to the interpretation of Onqelos, who translates: And under the throne of His glory. I mean to say that the first matter is also in true reality under the heaven that is called the throne. A pointer to this marvellous²⁴ interpretation was only given to me by a dictum of Rabbi Eliezer ben Hyrqanos that I came across. You will see it in one of the chapters of this Treatise.²⁵ The purpose of everyone endowed with intellect should be wholly directed to rejecting corporeality with respect to God, may He be exalted, and to considering all these apprehensions as intellectual, not sensory. Understand this and reflect on it.