consider the years long past;
ask your father, and he will inform you;
your elders, and they will tell you.
When the Most High[69 (#ulink_44185bff-18b0-507c-9db0-e62d2558df52)] apportioned the nations,
when he divided humankind,
he fixed the boundaries of the peoples
according to the number of the gods;[70 (#ulink_27ae6fc3-ed3a-564f-8513-00411f70fcc7)]
the LORD’s own portion was his people,
Jacob his allotted share.
CONSIDER THE YEARS LONG PAST
In order to understand fully what Man’s power over Nature, and therefore the power of some men over other men, really means, we must picture the race extended in time from the date of its emergence to that of its extinction. Each generation exercises power over its successors: and each, in so far as it modifies the environment bequeathed to it and rebels against tradition, resists and limits the power of its predecessors.
—from The Abolition of Man
For reflection
Deuteronomy 32:4–7
He sustained[71 (#ulink_2014a470-2d40-5b23-9d52-9b279ea19ec8)] him in a desert land,
in a howling wilderness waste;
he shielded him, cared for him,
guarded him as the apple of his eye.
As an eagle stirs up its nest,
and hovers over its young;
as it spreads its wings, takes them up,
and bears them aloft on its pinions,
the LORD alone guided him;
no foreign god was with him.
He set him atop the heights of the land,
and fed him with[72 (#ulink_b2df2caf-f777-5c69-9cb9-95fb533b6470)] produce of the field;
he nursed him with honey from the crags,
with oil from flinty rock;
curds from the herd, and milk from the flock,
with fat of lambs and rams;
Bashan bulls and goats,
together with the choicest wheat—
you drank fine wine from the blood of grapes.
Jacob ate his fill;[73 (#ulink_ae929cf9-c0ec-52ed-a088-0dd69a3ddcc6)]
Jeshurun grew fat, and kicked.
You grew fat, bloated, and gorged!
He abandoned God who made him,
and scoffed at the Rock of his salvation.
They made him jealous with strange gods,
with abhorrent things they provoked him.
They sacrificed to demons, not God,
to deities they had never known,
to new ones recently arrived,
whom your ancestors had not feared.
You were unmindful of the Rock that bore you;[74 (#ulink_4cddd465-8d1b-52aa-9ee5-38b779b5d00b)]
you forgot the God who gave you birth.
The LORD saw it, and was jealous;[75 (#ulink_f7e1d466-61c2-5745-840f-86e434d1f7c3)]
he spurned[76 (#ulink_b59112b7-8e50-5cc1-b194-577175d3fbee)] his sons and daughters.
He said: I will hide my face from them,
I will see what their end will be;
