These [two] saw the utmost labor of Moses in prayer, and saw [his] constancy, [and] the extreme weariness and weakness of [his] whole body. Therefore they resolved to bring him a remedy and aid — not by dissuading [him], lest he continue in prayer (for they clearly perceived how much of protection there was in his prayers), but by urging [him] to sit, and to [take] a slight relief of the arms. And at once — [since] not garments, not a mattress of herbs, not, in fine, anything soft was to hand (and if [any] were, they knew [that] Moses would spurn and reject such a thing) — they placed under [him] some stone, found by chance on that dry slope of Horeb, [and] took care [to set it] under him, that he might sit upon it.
(col. 72)
Then they took both hands of him [as he] sat — one indeed on the right, the other on the left — and thus, through the whole remaining part of the day, they held [them] up, so that they might always be lifted to heaven. For this [is] what the Hebrew word signifies — whatever Oleaster may wish against [it] — as both our [Latin] and the Septuagint interpreters rendered [it]. But Philo, at the cited place, seems to hand down [that] the hands of Moses were not grasped and held up by anyone, but that, by a new prodigy, they — [as if] having wings — flew about in the air divinely, and thus remained aloft until night. But he [Philo] is contrary to this text, as we have seen, which, in words so clear, attributes the holding-up to Aaron and Hur, standing on this side and that.
Nor indeed can it be doubted [that] they too joined their prayers together with him [Moses] from the beginning of the day, and now went on further to join [them], so that, while they propped the arms of the other [man], they were most erect [intent] in mind toward God. For what [would] good and grave men [do]? Could they — in so great a crisis of affairs, while the sum of things is at stake; while [these men], who could otherwise have remained in the camp, and there consoled the people, and, if perchance any commotion should arise, restrained [it]; [could they], as they behold Moses, on that slope, pouring out prayers and tears so intently, so assiduously, with so great fatigue, [and] showing to God that sacred, sacred rod, as a certain pledge, as it were, of aid — [could they] have been merely idle spectators? [Would they] not [rather have been] with him, unfed [fasting], praying-together, weeping-together?
But it can still be doubtful why they too did not have need of sitting, and of a prop for the hands. To me two [reasons] seem [likely]. One indeed, [that] they, when they were weary, sat at times, and let down [their] hands; and did not so fight against the heaviness and discomfort of their body — because, namely, they observed [that there was] not so much of moment in their own [hands] as in Moses’s hands and prayers. Nay, since they held Moses’s hands, they could, whenever they wished, pause; and Moses meanwhile raised up [his] hands by his own strength for that while. The other [reason], [that] they [were] therefore less fatigued, because Moses’s soul was borne with greater impulse and effort toward God, and conceived [its] prayers [more intensely]. And [it] is wont, thence, [that] the vigor of the body slackens and is weakened somewhat — as experience teaches also in the studies of letters and in [literary] compositions. But what I said [about] the aid spontaneously brought to Moses by them, Josephus thinks [was] done by Moses’s order.