[45] Nahor means “rest of light”; Milcah, “queen”; and Reumah, “seeing something.” Now to have light in the mind is good, yet what is at rest, quiet and immovable, is not a perfect good; it is well that things evil should be in a state of stillness; motion on the other hand is the proper condition for the good. For what use is the flute-player,

[46] however fine a performer he may be, if he remain quiet and does not play, or the harpist if he does not use his harp, or in general any craftsman if he does not exercise his craft? No knowledge is profitable to the possessors through the mere theory if it is not combined with practice: a man may know how to contend in the pancratium, to box or to wrestle, yet if his hands be tied behind his back he will get no good from his athletic training; so too with one who has mastered the science of running, if he suffers from gout or from any other affliction of the feet.

[47] Now knowledge is the great sunlight of the soul. For as our eyes are illuminated by the sun’s rays, so is the mind by wisdom, and anointed with the eyesalve of ever fresh acquisitions of knowledge it grows accustomed to see with clearer vision. Nahor is therefore properly called “rest of light”:

[48] in so far as he is wise Abraham’s kinsman, he has obtained a share in wisdom’s light; but in so far as he has not accompanied him abroad in his journey from the created to the uncreated, and from the world to the world’s Framer, the knowledge he has gained is halting and incomplete, resting and staying where it is, or rather standing stockstill, like a lifeless statue.

[49] For he does not remove from the land of Chaldaea, that is he does not sever himself from the study of astrology; he honours the created before the creator, and the world before God, or rather he holds that the world is not the work of God but is itself God absolute in His power.