The distinction between hearing and being instructed

Humans are animals of choice, participating in sciences; for they do not live by sensation alone like the irrational, but reason already shows itself through the creation of arts. The first point regarding the literal sense is this; the things regarding the ascent are these.

The cattle-tender is different from the shepherd; for the one uses knowledge, but the cattle-tender does not. Abel was the righteous shepherd, governing his irrational powers—the desiring, the appetitive, and the spirited—according to the right reason; but the cattle-tender, lacking science and being a certain pleasure-seeker, is subject to the sensations alone, not ruling them but being ruled by them.

And as a clear example, it would be said in this way: The physician uses touch differently than one looking toward pleasure; this one, then, is a kind of cattle-tender, but the physician is a shepherd, for he uses reason with sensation. In the same way, regarding smell and the other sensations, the one using them with reason is best. For reasoning begins the sensation, and if the reasoning is held in check, the man receives the qualities according to the passions, such as being called a lion through the spirited part, a fox through the cunning, and a serpent through the earthly part, and also being called a horse through the pleasurable part; for they say, 'You have become like mares' (Psalm 55:19), and other men are called such because, being entirely of the sensations, they produce nothing divine, like us; for he says, 'Do not become like a horse and a similar creature, which have no understanding' (Psalm 49:20).

The cattle-tender is such, being a certain base person, not dwelling in a house but in tents, a precarious thing, not imitating those who dwell in tents for the sake of entering into the house, who also say as in the Psalm: 'How lovely are your dwellings, O Lord of hosts: my soul longs and even faints for the courts of the Lord' (Psalm 84:1-2); for the one progressing from tents desires the courts, singing: 'I will go in the way of a wonderful habitation until I reach the house of God' (Psalm 77:13). The other brother is 'he who showed the harp and the lyre' (Psalm 33:2), being his brother in righteousness; for he has neighbors for the enjoyment of pleasures and the deception through music being worked upon the ears; for 'woe' to 'those who rise up...'

Chasing the morning and the evening, remaining blind; for wine will intoxicate them; for they drink wine with lyres and psalteries, but they do not look upon the works of the Lord. And the other one crafts war-gear from bronze and iron, the bronze making its sound, just as Paul writes, 'I have become a sounding bronze' (1 Cor 13:1); and he himself is also a worker of iron, being a certain sophist and deceiving through seeming probabilities.

And Lamech said to his wives, Adam and Zillah: 'Hear my voice, women of Lamech; be instructed by my words; for I have killed a man for a wound, and a young man for a bruise' (Gen 4:23-24); for seventy times seven has been avenged from Cain, and from Lamech seventy times seven. I believe that being instructed is brought about only by divine instruction, and it differs from hearing, when it is joined with it; for the one, being instructed, is the hearing of that which is near, but the hearing is the hearing of that which is far off, and the word is not near. And in Isaiah, 'Hear, O heaven, and be instructed, O earth, for the Lord has spoken' (Isa 30:2), is not said in parallel, which is also 'Be instructed, O heaven, and I will speak' (Isa 40:9)—for instead of 'Pay attention,' other interpreters say 'Be instructed'—'and let the earth hear the words from my mouth' (Isa 30:2). And they say such an observation exists: when the law was being given by God, since it happened to be near the heavenly works, for this reason the heaven is commanded to be instructed; but when they departed from the upright citizenship, as to become far from the earth, then it is said, 'Hear, O heaven'—for they happened to be far—'and be instructed, O earth,' for this earth was near through its attachments. Therefore Lamech did not say 'Hear' and 'Be instructed' in parallel, but rather we have observed the difference between them in the Scripture not to be untimely; and what is it that we should learn, he says: 'Hear my voice, women of Lamech; be instructed by my words' (Gen 4:23). And someone might say that the voice and the words are in parallel; but he who seeks precision even regarding these would say that regarding the voice he ordered 'Hear,' but regarding the words he ordered the more precise thing, which is to be instructed.