ליטעראַטור פֿון בית שני אויף דברים 21:15

[19] Again the same lesson is taught in a law which Moses enacts, a law both excellent and profitable. It runs thus. “If a man have two wives, one loved and the other hated, and each bear a son to him, and the son of her that is hated is the first-born, it shall be that on the day on which he allots his goods to his sons he shall not be able to give the right of the first-born to the son of her whom he loves, and set aside the first-born, the son of her whom he hates, but he shall acknowledge the first-born, the son of her whom he hates, to give him a double portion of all that he has gotten; for he is the beginning of his children, and to him belong the rights of the first-born” (Deut. 21:15–17).

[21] Indeed there is one commandment of the law in which those who have ears to hear will perceive that he sets before us still more clearly the two truths of which I have spoken. For we read “if a man has two wives, one loved and the other hated, and the beloved and the hated each bear a son to him, and the son of her that is hated is the firstborn, it shall be that on the day on which he allots his goods to his sons, he shall not be able to give the right of the firstborn to the son of her whom he loves, and set aside the firstborn, the son of her whom he hates, but he shall acknowledge the firstborn, the son of her whom he hates, to give him a double portion of all that he has gotten; for he is the beginning of his children and to him belong the rights of the firstborn” (Deut. 21:15–17).

The treatment of II. opens (11) with a discussion as to why Abel the younger is mentioned in v. 2 before his elder brother, the answer being that vice is older in point of time, but virtue in point of worth. This is illustrated (15) from experience of life, for the philosophical calm comes later than the passions of youth, then (17) from the story of Jacob and Esau, and finally (19) by the law of Deut. 21:15–17, that the first-born who is the child of the hated wife (i.e. Virtue) is not to be disinherited in favour of the younger child of the beloved wife (i.e. Vice). This leads Philo on to the elaborate allegory (20–44) of the two, as courtesan and chaste woman, pressing their claims upon the mind. Virtue’s harangue, beginning 28, which contains what is probably the most formidable catalogue of bad qualities ever drawn up (32), includes an impassioned eulogy of toil (35–41) and ends with some loosely connected thoughts (43–44) on the inferior value of the secular learning. Her pleading prevails with the mind (45), which becomes what Abel was—a shepherd, and thus we resume the real consideration of the text. The true shepherd controls the unreasoning, but not vicious, faculties (46) and the greatness of the calling is illustrated from various verses in the Pentateuch (48–51). We should here expect some similar interpretation of Cain’s occupation, but Philo dismisses this with the remark that he has treated it in an earlier book (51).