2016年4月28日功课

MOSES

摩西

THE STORY OF MOSES, THE LEADER OF THE JEWISH PEOPLE

犹太人的首领——摩西的故事。

SOME time during the twentieth century before our era, a small and unimportant tribe of Semitic shepherds had left its old home, which was situated in the land of Ur on the mouth of the Euphrates, and had tried to find new pastures within the domain of the Kings of Babylonia. They had been driven away by the royal soldiers and they had moved westward looking for a little piece of unoccupied territory where they might set up their tents.

2000多年前的某一天，一个渺小的无关紧要的闪族游牧部落离开了他们位于幼发拉底河河口的乌尔城的古老家园，意图在巴比伦国王的领土里寻找一片新的牧场。他们被皇家卫队赶走了，不得不向西移动，以寻找一片未被占领的土地好安营扎寨。

2016年4月29日功课

This tribe of shepherds was known as the Hebrews or, as we call them, the Jews. They had wandered far and wide, and after many years of dreary peregrinations they had been given shelter in Egypt. For more than five centuries they had dwelt among the Egyptians and when their adopted country had been overrun by the Hyksos marauders (as I told you in the story of Egypt) they had managed to make themselves useful to the foreign invader and had been left in the undisturbed possession of their grazing fields. But after a long war of independence the Egyptians had driven the Hyksos out of the valley of the Nile and then the Jews had come upon evil times for they had been degraded to the rank of common slaves and they had been forced to work on the royal roads and on the Pyramids. And as the frontiers were guarded by the Egyptian soldiers it had been impossible for the Jews to escape.

这个游牧民族以希伯来人著称，我们也称之为犹太人。他们曾四处游荡，经过很多年凄惨的探索后终于在埃及寻得栖息之地。在长达500年的时间里，他们和埃及人杂居在一起。当这个收留他们的国家被侵略者西克索斯人占领时，他们想尽办法为外国侵略者服务，所以他们能够留在自己那未被惊扰的放牧区域里。但是在埃及人经过长期的独立战争，将西克索斯人赶出尼罗河流域之后，犹太人的黑暗时期就开始了。他们被贬低为普通奴隶，被强迫在皇道上和金字塔上劳动。因为有埃及士兵在边疆把守，犹太人不可能逃脱。

2016年4月30日功课

After many years of suffering they were saved from their miserable fate by a young Jew, called Moses, who for a long time had dwelt in the desert and there had learned to appreciate the simple virtues of his earliest ancestors, who had kept away from cities and city-life and had refused to let themselves be corrupted by the ease and the luxury of a foreign civilisation.

忍受了多年以后，他们被以个叫摩西的年轻犹太人从这种悲惨的命运中解救出来。摩西曾经在沙漠里居住过很长一段时间，那段生活让他认识到他们古老祖先的一些朴素优点。祖先们远离城市和城市生活，避免安逸和奢华的外来文明将自己腐蚀。

2016年5月1日功课

Moses decided to bring his people back to a love of the ways of the patriarchs. He succeeded in evading the Egyptian troops that were sent after him and led his fellow tribesmen into the heart of the plain at the foot of Mount Sinai. During his long and lonely life in the desert, he had learned to revere the strength of the great God of the Thunder and the Storm, who ruled the high heavens and upon whom the shepherds depended for life and light and breath. This God, one of the many divinities who were widely worshipped in western Asia, was called Jehovah, and through the teaching of Moses, he became the sole Master of the Hebrew race.

摩西决定把他的人民带回到祖先曾喜欢的那种生活方式。他成功的躲开那些被遣来追踪他的埃及士兵们，他他的部落居民们带到位于西奈山脚的平原腹地里。在他漫长孤单的沙漠生活中，他学会尊敬伟大上帝的力量，像雷电和暴雨，闪电和呼吸。上帝统治着世间，人们赖以生存。这个上帝是指耶和华，是众多在西亚被广泛崇拜的神灵之一。通过摩西的教导，耶和华成为希伯来人唯一的上帝。

2016年5月2日功课

One day, Moses disappeared from the camp of the Jews. It was whispered that he had gone away carrying two tablets of rough-hewn stone. That afternoon, the top of the mountain was lost to sight. The darkness of a terrible storm hid it from the eye of man. But when Moses returned, behold! there stood engraved upon the tablets the words which Jehovah had spoken unto the people of Israel amidst the crash of his thunder and the blinding flashes of his lightning. And from that moment, Jehovah was recognised by all the Jews as the Highest Master of their Fate, the only True God, who had taught them how to live holy lives when he bade them to follow the wise lessons of his Ten Commandments.

一天，摩西从犹太人的营寨中消失了。据传，他是带着两块坚硬的石板离开的。那天下午，山顶变得黯淡无光。一场恐怖的暴风雨让它从人们的严重消失了，山头陷入一片黑暗中。但当摩西回来以后人们看到，山顶上矗立着两块石板，石板上刻着文字，文字的内容是耶和华在电闪雷鸣中讲给以色列人的话。从那一刻起，耶和华被所有犹太人认为是他们生命中最高的神明——唯一的真主。耶和华教导他们怎样过上至善的生活，命令他们奉行他的十诫中的智慧课程。

2016年5月3日功课(酒后)

They followed Moses when he bade them continue their journey through the desert. They obeyed him when he told them what to eat and drink and what to avoid that they might keep well in the hot climate. And finally after many years of wandering they came to a land which seemed pleasant and prosperous. It was called Palestine, which means the country of the ``Pilistu'' the Philistines, a small tribe of Cretans who had settled along the coast after they had been driven away from their own island. Unfortunately, the mainland, Palestine, was already inhabited by another Semitic race, called the Canaanites. But the Jews forced their way into the valleys and built themselves cities and constructed a mighty temple in a town which they named Jerusalem, the Home of Peace.

犹太人追随着摩西，他激励他们穿过了沙漠。他们对摩西言听计从，吃什么喝什么都听从摩西的以及怎样安然渡过高温气候。经过多年的游荡后，他们到达一个富饶美丽的地方。这个地方叫做巴勒斯坦，意思是一个平庸人的国度。克里特岛人在被驱逐出他们原来居住的 岛屿后，在这里沿海而居。不幸的是，巴勒斯坦大陆已经被一个迦南族的闪族部落所占领。但是犹太人强行进入这个河谷，建造自己的城市，建设自己宏大的神庙，他们称之为耶路撒冷，和平的策源地。

2016年5月4日功课

As for Moses, he was no longer the leader of his people. He had been allowed to see the mountain ridges of Palestine from afar. Then he had closed his tired eyes for all time. He had worked faithfully and hard to please Jehovah. Not only had he guided his brethren out of foreign slavery into the free and independent life of a new home but he had also made the Jews the first of all nations to worship a single God.

对摩西来说，他已经不再是犹太人的首领了。他被许可在远方遥望巴勒斯坦的山脊。然后，他永远的闭上了他那疲惫的双眼。他曾忠实的不辞辛苦的为耶和华服务。他不仅指引他的同胞摆脱外国奴隶身份，在新的家园过上自由独立的生活，也使犹太人在所有国家中成为第一个信奉单一上帝的民族。