Deuteronomy 17:16 · World English Bible
Only he shall not multiply horses to himself, nor cause the people to return to Egypt, to the end that he may multiply horses; because Yahweh has said to you, “You shall not go back that way again.”
A king does not have to want Egypt to end up there; he only has to leave the road legal. Sealed routes get unsealed by reasonable arguments.
From the Self-Help reading below.
The same verse, read by one tradition.
SELF-HELP
A king does not have to want Egypt to end up there; he only has to leave the road legal.
Sealed routes get unsealed by reasonable arguments. Nobody proposes a return to bondage; they propose an acquisition, a strategic advantage, and the old road becomes a supply line before anyone admits what it is.
Yahweh binds the throne by statute rather than by conviction, because a rule written in a strong hour governs the self that shows up tired and frightened. A decision left to the judgment of the moment gets renegotiated by the moment, and the moment always has a case for horses. What a nation pays for leaving the route legal is the direction it already bled to gain.
Self-Help lens
Which road back have you left open because you are sure you would never take it?
Epictetus said the time to decide is before the temptation arrives, because in the moment the mind will argue brilliantly for whatever it already wants. Settle the rule in a calm hour and simply apply it later.
The precepts are taken as vows rather than weighed case by case, precisely because craving produces excellent reasons. A line drawn in advance removes the negotiation.
Deal with a thing while it is still small. What becomes an avalanche begins as a reasonable step nobody thought worth stopping.
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Self-Help