and let every one in his turn say the same thing, for it is very becoming to every man who loves God to study such a song as this, but above all this world should sing it.
For God, like a shepherd and a king, governs (as if they were a flock of sheep) the earth, and the water, and the air, and the fire, and all the plants, and living creatures that are in
 Psalm xxiii. 1. 
 
them, whether mortal or divine; and he regulates the nature of the heaven, and the periodical revolutions of the sun and moon, and the variations and harmonious movements of the other stars, ruling them according to law and justice; appointing, as their immediate superintendent, his own right reason, his first-born son, who is to receive the charge of this sacred company, as the lieutenant of the great king; for it is said somewhere, "Behold, I am he! I will send my messenger before thy face, who shall keep thee in the road." Exodus xxiii. 20. Let therefore all the world, the greatest and most perfect flock of the living God, say "The Lord is my shepherd, and he shall cause me to lack nothing," and let every separate individual say the same thing; not with the voice which proceeds from his tongue and his mouth, extending only through a scanty portion of the air, but with the wide spreading voice of the mind, which reaches to the very extremities of this universe; for it is impossible that there should be a deficiency of anything that is necessary, where God presides, who is in the habit of bestowing good things in all fulness and completeness in all living beings.
 But there is a very beautiful encouragement to equality contained in the song before mentioned; for in real truth, the man who appears to have everything else, and yet who is impatient under the authority of one master, is incomplete in his happiness, and is poor; but if a soul is governed by God, having that one and only thing on which all other things depend, it is very naturally in no need of other things, regarding not blind riches, but only such as are endowed with real and acute sight. I have again followed Mangey. The text has οὐ τυφλὸν πλου̃τον βλέπουσα, τὰ δὲ καὶ σφόδρα ὀξυδερκου̃σα καὶ θαυμάζουσα , which he pronounces corrupt and unintelligible, and translates as if were βλέποντα δὲ καὶ σφόδρα ὀξυδερκου̃ντα θαυμάζουσα . All true disciples have come to conceive an earnest and unalterable love for that; and therefore laughing at the mere keeping of sheep, they have directed their attention to the attainment of a shepherd’s knowledge; and a proof of this is to be found in the case of Joseph,