Philonis Judaei Opera Omnia (Vol. 7)

Why is it said to him: You shall surely know original: "Certo scies" (Hebrew idiom "knowing you shall know") that your seed will be a stranger in a land not its own, and will be reduced to servitude, and afflicted for four hundred years? Genesis 15:13

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§. 10. The phrase "it is said to him" is well noted; since a prophet is thought to say something, yet he does not provide an edict of his own, but is an interpreter of Another God who sends things into his mind. Therefore, whatever he proclaims and utters in words is entirely true and divine. First, that the human race dwells in the land of another: for all things under heaven are the possession of God, and the living beings who dwell in this place are more truly to be called strangers than residents in their own region, which they do not possess by nature. Second, that every mortal is a servant in his own kind; for no one is found to be free, but possesses many masters who vex and afflict him, both externally and internally within himself. Externally, winter afflicts with cold, summer burns with heat, hunger, thirst, and many other calamities; internally, pleasures, desires, sorrows, and fears. Servitude is determined by four hundred years, as the aforementioned desires arise. Wherefore it was said above that Abraham, while passing by, sat upon them, hindering and repelling—in words, those flesh-eating birds that were flying over the torn animals; in deed, however, the afflictions coming upon men. For since he is both a lover by his own nature and a diligent student of virtue, he is the most humane physician of our race, and truly a healer and expeller of evil. For all these things allegorically concern the soul. For the soul of the wise person...