{"id":2149,"date":"2019-05-28T13:56:00","date_gmt":"2019-05-28T11:56:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/buch.jehovah-shammah.de\/?p=2149"},"modified":"2019-05-28T13:57:42","modified_gmt":"2019-05-28T11:57:42","slug":"outside-the-bible-commentary-19","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/buch.jehovah-shammah.de\/index.php\/2019\/05\/28\/outside-the-bible-commentary-19\/","title":{"rendered":"Outside the Bible Commentary – 19"},"content":{"rendered":"

will blossom as a rose in Israel This and the following metaphors are a development of Hosea 14:6\u20138 (perhaps borrowed from what was once an independent homily on this passage). However, the phrase \u201cmy bones will blossom\u201d seems doubly strange: bones don\u2019t blossom, and in any case the rest of the passage seems to be talking about Simeon\u2019s descendants, not his last remains (or their putative resurrection). How Heb. yonekot (\u201cbranches\u201d in Hosea 14:7) ended up as \u201cbones\u201d in our current text\u2014if that is what happened\u2014remains a mystery. Perhaps the phrase \u201c[my] branches will spread far and wide\u201d (from Hosea 14:7) was mistakenly moved from here to the end of this verse: if so, the original might have been, \u201cIf you put aside from yourselves any ill-will and stiff-neckedness, then my branches will spread far and wide and will blossom like a rose in Israel,\u201d followed by \u201cand like a lily in Jacob, and my fragrance will be like the fragrance of Lebanon\u201d (cf. Hosea 14:6 and 7). Note that Rabbinic interpreters took the phrase \u201cthey shall return\u201d in Hosea 14:7 as referring to repentance, turning aside from earlier misdeeds (see Lev. Rab. 1:2), and it is presumably in that sense that it is mentioned here: if Simeon\u2019s descendants turn aside from envy and disobedience, they will blossom and flourish. For a similar address to \u201cmy faithful children\u201d with similar imagery, see Sir. 39:13\u201314. Note also that the \u201cfragrance of Lebanon\u201d was sometimes taken as the fragrance of the Jerusalem Temple, constructed from the cedars of Lebanon (cf. Sir. 24:13\u201315).
\nholy ones will grow from me like the cedars A further echo of Hosea 14:6\u20137, \u201che will strike root as [the cedars of] Lebanon.\u201d
\n6:3\u20135. Then the seed of Canaan will be destroyed All of Israel\u2019s traditional enemies will perish, including \u201cAmalek\u201d; see Exod. 17:8\u201316; Deut. 25:17\u201319. Also included in this list\u2014rather oddly\u2014are \u201call the Cappadocians \u2026 and all the Hittites.\u201d But what did the Cappadocians (citizens of a city in Asia Minor) ever do to Israel, and why mention the Hittites, whose empire collapsed in the second millennium BCE? \u201cCappadocians\u201d may be used here because its sound is similar to \u201cCaphtorim,\u201d the name in biblical Heb. for the Aegean inhabitants of Crete or Cyprus. The word was translated as \u201cCappadocians\u201d in Deut. 2:23 LXX; since that verse suggests that the Caphtorim\/Cappadocians are identical to the Philistines, they may have been mentioned here as being, like Canaan and Amalek, among Israel\u2019s traditional enemies. As for the Hittites, they inhabited Asia Minor (today\u2019s Turkey), and the Gk. Chettaioi could indeed refer to them. More likely, however, Chettaioi refers to the Kittim, an Aegean people who came to be identified with the Roman empire in various texts from the Second Temple period.
\nthe land of Ham will be forsaken Refers to Egypt. Thus freed from these old trouble-makers, \u201cthe whole land will have rest from trouble.\u201d \u201cThen Shem,\u201d Israel\u2019s ancestor, \u201cwill be glorified\u201d by Israel\u2019s ascendancy. The name \u201cShem\u201d here is somewhat unexpected, and other mss. have Gk. semeion, which (R. H. Charles suggested) may represent Heb. tziyyun, a misunderstanding of Tziyyon, \u201cZion.\u201d The original Hebrew thus may have read, \u201cThen Zion will be glorified, for the LORD God [etc.].\u201d Alternately, \u201cShem\u201d may simply have been the common noun for \u201cname\u201d: in that case, perhaps the original was: \u201cThen will be glorified the name of the LORD God, the mighty one of Israel.\u201d (The end of this verse is an obvious Christian interpolation).
\n6:6. the Spirits of deceit will be given over to being trampled This seems a somewhat odd idea: can Spirits (or angels) be trampled? Perhaps this was a deliberate play on words, with those who had practiced falsehood (Heb. mirmah) being punished by trampling (Heb. mirmas, \u201ctrampling\u201d).
\nand people will rule over the wicked Spirits The continuation of this verse, along with 6:7, are a further Christian interpolation.
\n7:1. Now, my children, listen to Levi, and through Judah you will be redeemed This is a good example of the complexity of our text, since here the original \u201cLevi\u201d layer (see Introduction) was apparently supplemented here by the second-stage \u201cLevi and Judah\u201d edition, which must have said something like \u201cListen to Levi and Judah and do not rise up against those two tribes\u201d (this version is indeed attested in one of the Greek mss.); this text was then subsequently revised by the Christian editor to suggest that \u201credemption\u201d would come (apparently exclusively) through a descendant of Judah and yet that (somewhat paradoxically) \u201cfrom them [i.e., both Levi and Judah] will God\u2019s salvation arise for you.\u201d
\n7:2. For the LORD will raise up from Levi Similarly here: the original \u201cLevi\u201d level presumably asserted that God would raise up a high priest and a king from Levi, i.e., both offices would be combined in a single man; this was changed in the \u201cLevi and Judah\u201d edition, which insisted on a division of powers; and the Christian editor then added the rest of the verse.
\n7:3. for their generations Heb. ledorotam, forever.
\n8:1. finished commanding Finished this spiritual testament (called in Heb. a \u201ccommand\u201d or \u201ccharge\u201d); see on T. Reub. 1:1.
\n8:2. that would not waste away Missing in some mss.
\n8:3. in the palace treasure-house Certainly not impossible, but an unlikely spot for a putrefying body. Perhaps at some point there was some confusion between Gk. taphos, \u201cgrave,\u201d and tamieion, \u201ctreasure-house.\u201d (Some mss. do indeed have \u201cin the tombs of the kings.\u201d) Cf. Mek. Besh. 1, \u201cin [the necropolis of] Thebes.\u201d
\n8:4. For the wizards had told them Ancient interpreters saw an exegetical problem in Joseph\u2019s request of his brothers that they carry his remains to Canaan \u201cwhen the LORD shall take account of you\u201d (Gen. 50:25). Why did he not request to be buried in Canaan right away, as his father Jacob had (Gen. 49:29\u201330)? Various answers were proposed; here, T. Sim. reports that Pharaoh\u2019s wizards had foreseen that \u201con the departure of Joseph\u2019s bones\u201d from Egypt \u201cthere would be darkness and gloom in the whole land of Egypt\u201d (cf. Exod. 10:21\u201323). To forestall such a misfortune, the Egyptians were keeping Joseph\u2019s bones in some inaccessible location. Thus Joseph, foreseeing that this would be the case, had not made his brothers swear that they would remove his remains for burial right away; instead, he requested that they be taken at the time of the Exodus, as indeed they were (Exod. 13:19). An alternate solution to this exegetical problem is found in the book of Jubilees, which held that there was a war between Egypt and Canaan at the time of Joseph\u2019s death, as a result of which the border between the two countries was sealed (Jub. 46:6\u20137); Joseph knew his bones could not be carried out during the war, so he had his brothers swear that they would be removed later, at the time of the exodus. But if that was so, how could Simeon, who died the very same year as Joseph (T. Sim. 1:1), have had his bones transferred to Canaan immediately? The answer of T. Sim., apparently well aware of this motif in Jubilees, sought to reconcile it by saying that Simeon\u2019s brothers \u201cbrought\u201d his remains to Hebron \u201csecretly during the war of the Egyptians\u201d (8:2). Presumably, his remains could be removed\u2014despite the war and the border being closed\u2014while Joseph\u2019s could not because Simeon was far less prominent than Joseph; his death would have hardly been noticed by the Egyptians.
\n9:1. by the hand of Moses A Hebraism meaning \u201cas accomplished by Moses.\u201d<\/my><\/p>\n

The Testament of Levi<\/p>\n

1:1. that he commanded see comment on T. Reub. 1:1.
\neverything that they would do and everything that would happen to them This is the only opening of a testament that explicitly defines itself as a prediction of future events (cf. Gen. 49:1), although all the Testaments do contain predictions of future disobedience and its dire consequences. Because of the close dependence of this testament on the ALD (see \u201cIntroduction\u201d), it may well be that this opening sentence derives from the now-lost beginning of that text. If so, it is significant that the other Testaments do not begin in the same way; apparently, the author saw his main subject to be ethical preaching, with the foretelling of future disobedience as a secondary concern.
\n2:1. I, Levi, was born in Haran Levi was born when Jacob was staying with his uncle Laban. Laban is identified as an \u201cAramean\u201d (Gen. 25:20; 31:20, 24). But where was Aram, and what were its borders? Once a powerful kingdom centered in Damascus, Aram had ceased to exist as such in pre-exilic times; during the Second Temple period, it was apparently associated with the lands to Judea\u2019s north and east (cf. Gen. 29:1) and, in keeping with T. Levi here, sometimes was thought to extend to Haran. Note that Gen. 24:10 reports that Abraham\u2019s servant went to \u201cAram Naharaim, to the city of Nahor,\u201d presumably in or around Haran (see Gen. 11:31).
\nI went with Father As in Aram. abba ([the] father), that is, \u201cmy father.\u201d
\n2:2. I was [still] young, around twenty years old An odd dating; nowhere else in the Testaments is someone \u201caround\u201d a certain age; it seems likely the original text simply said \u201ctwenty,\u201d but a later editor, observing the conflict with T. Levi 12:5, inserted the \u201caround.\u201d
\nI took revenge on Hamor The biblical story of the rape of Dinah and her brothers\u2019 subsequent revenge is recounted in Gen. 34. According to the biblical account, Levi and Simeon together slaughtered all of the male inhabitants of Shechem. Here, however, Levi mentions only his killing of one man, Hamor, the rapist\u2019s father. (This conflicts with 6:4, where Levi says he killed the rapist Shechem and Simeon killed Hamor.) As to why they are said to have killed only one man apiece, see below on 6:4.
\n2:3\u20135:3 Levi\u2019s Ascent into Heaven. An old tradition, preserved in the ALD and Jubilees, held that an unbroken chain of priests had existed from earliest time: Adam was thus a priest, offering incense on the day he left the Garden of Eden (Jub. 3:27); from him the priesthood passed to Enoch, then to Noah, Shem, Abraham, Isaac, and finally to Levi. Thereafter, the hereditary priesthood would belong exclusively to the tribe of Levi. This chain of priests idea is reflected in the ALD 5:4, 5:8\u20139:18, 10:3,10, etc., throughout Jubilees, and in the Testaments as well (T. Levi 9:7\u201314). It is thus clear that Isaac is able to instruct Levi in priestly law because he himself has been a priest (see below, 9:6). But another, probably still more ancient tradition, knew of no such chain of priests; whoever and whatever may have preceded him, it was Levi who was specially selected to be the first of the hereditary priesthood. This tradition is likewise represented in the ALD and in the Testaments. Both texts thus harmonize the two traditions so that they do not obviously jangle\u2014and yet, they are in essence contradictory. For, if the priesthood was to be passed down to Levi as a link in the priestly chain, why did he need to be consecrated by seven heavenly beings (ALD 4:4\u201313; T. Levi 8:2\u201319)? It would have been enough for him to receive the hand-me-down priestly garments worn by the previous priests (ALD 5:4) and undergo ordinary human consecration (ALD 5:4) as well as receive instruction in the priesthood just as his predecessors had. (Indeed, Levi is so instructed in by Isaac in T. Levi 9:7\u201314.) In other words, even the ancient ALD sought to pass along two accounts of Levi\u2019s accession to the priesthood that did not fit together. If, according to the second tradition mentioned, Levi was specially selected and consecrated to be the first hereditary priest, it only remained to explain why he was the one chosen. It may be that, at an early point, Levi\u2019s meritorious action in killing the men of Shechem was reason enough for his appointment (cf. Jub. 30:18\u201319). But the second tradition found in both the ALD and the Testament of Levi presented a more appropriately spiritual reason: Levi\u2019s pious prayer to be granted wisdom and to be saved from injustice and lawlessness (ALD 3:1\u201318, summarized in T. Levi 2:3\u20134). It is this prayer that leads to Levi\u2019s selection for the gift of the priesthood (T. Levi 2:10, 12; 4:2).
\n2:3. Abelmaul The Greek form of Abel-Meholah, a site not far from Shechem mentioned several times in the Bible (Judg. 7:22; 1 Kings 4:12, etc.). The ALD 4:2 speaks not of Abel Meholah, but Abel Mayin (Heb. Abel Mayim) as the site of Levi\u2019s vision; it thus could be that the (more familiar) name of Abel-Meholah came to be substituted for Abel-Mayim at some stage in T. Levi\u2019s transmission. But where was Abel Mayim? Such a place-name is mentioned once in the Bible (2 Chron. 16:4\u2014in the parallel passage in 1 Kings 15:20 it is called Abel Beit Ma\u2019akhah), in the far north. This apparently led someone (the Greek translator? an earlier scholar?) to suppose that Levi went to the far north to graze his flocks and there had this vision. This far northern location would put Levi\u2019s vision in close proximity to Mount Hermon, an extremely \u201chigh mountain\u201d (2:5) from which Levi could, in visionary fashion, ascend into heaven. But the very distance separating this northern site from Shechem and the subsequent events is problematic; it may all be the result of some creative scholarship on the part of someone, on which see below on 6:1.
\nthe Spirit of understanding of the LORD The original text more likely intended to refer to the \u201cSpirit of understanding from the LORD.\u201d Throughout the Testaments (see above on T. Reub. 2:1), good Spirits\/angels are dispatched by God and bad ones by Beliar; the \u201cSpirit of understanding\u201d seems, like the \u201cSpirit of truth\u201d in T. Benj. 4:4, to be an emissary of God; a \u201cSpirit of understanding of the LORD\u201d seems a bit too specific to fit the pattern of these other emissaries.
\nI saw all men going astray Lit. \u201cdestroying their path,\u201d corresponding to the Heb. idiom hishhitu et darkam.
\ninjustice had built walls for itself \u2026 lawlessness was enthroned in towers That is, injustice and lawlessness not only went unpunished, but they had become entrenched as part of the establishment.
\n2:4. I prayed to the LORD to be saved T. Levi merely mentions Levi\u2019s prayer in passing, but in the ALD, as well as in one manuscript of T. Levi stored in a monastery at Mount Athos, a lengthy prayer appears at this point. It is full of pious sentiment, and it is apparently in response to this prayer that he is subsequently granted the priesthood and privileged with a visit to heaven. This visit and its explanation, stretching from 2:5 through 4:1, actually seem to be an elaboration on Levi\u2019s brief sighting of heaven as recounted in ALD 4:5\u20136; but what was merely a sentence in the ALD becomes here a lengthy guided tour. In its present form this tour seems to be a misplaced intrusion into the text, since 4:2 (if introduced as spoken by an angel) would follow logically from 2:4, and 5:1 (corresponding to ALD 4:6) should have marked the beginning of Levi\u2019s glimpse of heaven.
\n2:5. and I was on it Some mss.: \u201cthis was the mountain of the Shield in Abelmaul,\u201d but that seems to be based on the remark in 6:1.
\n2:6\u20137. And behold The conventional way of introducing an account of a dream in Hebrew and Aramaic.
\nAnd I entered the first heaven In Second Temple writings, heaven was conventionally divided into different layers or levels of increasing sanctity, though the total number of levels varies; these levels correspond to the angels and other heavenly beings who inhabit them, who are similarly ranked. In Jubilees, for example, the two highest ranks of angels are the \u201cangels of the Presence\u201d [lit. \u201cof the Face,\u201d because they are privileged to serve God directly and behold the heavenly countenance] and the \u201cangels of holiness\u201d (or \u201csanctification\u201d; see Jub. 2:2, 18, based on Isa. 6:3). Some mss. of T. Levi 2:7 read: \u201cAnd from the first heaven I went into the second.\u201d This is evidently a mistake, since the angel has just told Levi to enter heaven. Charles saw this and the variants in the succeeding two verses as the result of an editor\u2019s attempt to convert an original three-layer heaven into a seven-layered one, and this supposition appears correct; for other texts that present the third heaven as the highest, see Apocalypse Moses 37:5; 2 En. (A) 8:1; etc.
\na great [body of] water, suspended These are the waters that are suspended above the firmament in Gen. 1:7.
\n2:8. And I saw a second heaven Some mss.: \u201ca third heaven.\u201d See previous note.
\n2:9. you will see another heaven Some mss.: \u201cyou will see another four heavens,\u201d making a total of seven.
\n2:10. You will stand close to the LORD It seems that all mss. slightly fumbled the transition from v. 9 to v. 10, reading \u201cwhen you get there you will stand\u201d as if it were all part of a single sentence. But even in a vision, having a human ascend to the top of heaven and actually stand next to God was close to blasphemy. Rather, in verse 9 Levi is told of what he will see when he arrives at the third level of heaven, that is, \u201cwhen you get there.\u201d Then, in v. 10, the angel turns to the subject of Levi\u2019s future duties as a priest by paraphrasing Deut. 18:5: God, he says, has chosen Levi and his descendants to be the hereditary priests and Levites whose job will be (according to this biblical verse) will be \u201cto stand and to serve\u201d Him\u2014not in heaven and not now, but in the earthly temple below after it is built. The other great Levitical duty is to teach the Israelites divine law and lore (Deut. 33:10), which is why the angel next mentions that \u201cyou will announce His secrets to men\u201d\u2014these are the divine secrets (Aram. razin) mentioned in the biblical book of Dan. 2:28, 47 and featured prominently Dead Sea Scrolls.
\n2:12. And your livelihood will be from the LORD\u2019s portion That is, priests and Levites will not have their own farmlands but will be supported by contributions to the temple, \u201cthe LORD is their [the Levites\u2019] portion [= inherited farmlands],\u201d Deut. 10:9; 18:1; cf. Num. 18:20.
\n3:1. Hear, then, [what I have to say] about the heavens Some mss.: \u201cabout the seven heavens,\u201d apparently to reflect the change in the total number of levels; see above on 2:7.
\non all the sins Lit., \u201con all the unrighteousnesses\u201d; Gk. adikia \u201cunrighteousness\u201d is often used as a synonym for \u201csin\u201d or \u201ctransgression.\u201d
\n3:2. and it has fire, snow, ice, ready for the day of judgment Some mss. read: \u201cThe second [heaven] has fire,\u201d etc. But it would seem more logical that the lowest level of heaven, the one that looks out on the human sinners, should also contain the malign forces that stand ready to punish them. In fact, it seems most likely that this verse started out as a simple inventory of the contents of this level: it is here that the lowest angels, \u201cthe angels of the Spirit of fire \u2026 of the winds \u2026 of the clouds and darkness and snow and hail and frost\u201d (Jub. 2:2) are located, along with the forces of nature that they control. (They would have to be in the lowest level, or else the lightning [\u201cfire\u201d] snow, ice and so forth would have to pass through some still lower level of heaven before reaching the earth.) But the very notion that this level of heaven contains fire may have suggested to a later writer that this was also the place in which the wicked are to be punished on \u201cthe day of the judgment in God\u2019s righteous meting out of justice,\u201d since the wicked are conventionally to be punished with fire; however, other elements are also sometimes connected with punishment: \u201cThere are storm winds designed to punish \u2026 fire, hail, famine, disease\u2014these too were created for punishment\u201d (Sir. 39:28\u201329).
\n3:3. And in the second Some mss.: \u201cthe third.\u201d
\nare the forces of the armies [of angels] These are the \u201cheavenly hosts,\u201d God\u2019s angels.
\nto punish Lit., \u201cto do revenge,\u201d a Hebraism (Judg. 11:36; Ezek. 25:17; Ps. 146:7).
\nthe Spirits of deceit See on T. Sim. 12:7, 3:1; below on T. Iss. 4:3\u20134; the wicked angels\/Spirits are themselves to be punished on the Day of Judgment (1 En. 10:4\u20136, 12).
\nand of Beliar The Angel of deceit par excellence and the commander of these lesser Spirits.
\n3:4. resides the Great Glory A reference to God; cf. 1 En. 14:20, 102:3, and elsewhere.
\nin the holy of holies The Heavenly Temple, in which God was commonly deemed to dwell in Second Temple times, corresponded to the earthly temple in Jerusalem; since the latter\u2019s holiest chamber was called the \u201choly of holies,\u201d it stands to reason that the Heavenly Temple had a similar chamber.
\n3:5. are the angels of the LORD\u2019s Presence Lit., \u201cthe angels of the LORD\u2019s Face,\u201d see above on 2:6\u20137; these are called the \u201cministering angels\u201d in Rabbinic writings.
\nthe unwitting sins of the righteous Even the righteous can err, but an unintentional sin [Gk. agnoia] is not held against them; agnoia is the same term translated as \u201cfoolish mistake\u201d in T. Zeb. 1:5.
\n3:6. a sweet savor A common biblical phrase, referring to the odor rising from a sacrifice (Gen. 8:21; Exod. 29:18, 25, etc.): normally, this phrase describes the pleasant odor arising from an animal sacrifice on the altar (but see Ezek. 16:19), but it would seem quite unlikely that the sacrifices offered in the Heavenly Temple involved real, flesh-and-blood animals; therefore the author adds that this sweet savor came from \u201ca reasonable and bloodless sacrifice.\u201d
\n3:7. And in the lower heaven That heaven is presumably the middle one, i.e., the heaven beneath the highest heaven, which was just described. The angels in this middle heaven, in addition to punishing the wicked Spirits [angels] in the Day of Judgment, have another job: carrying \u201cthe answers to the angels of the LORD\u2019s Presence.\u201d Charles rightly observed that \u201canswers\u201d (Gk. apokriseis, Heb. teshuvot) makes no sense here. Presumably these angels, who are not permitted direct access to God, carry something to the angels of the Presence, who are allowed to approach God directly. That \u201csomething,\u201d strange as it might seem, is the repentance (teshuvah) of sinners. Rabbinic sages insisted that repentance reached the heavenly throne itself: \u201cSaid R. Levi: Great is repentance, which reaches to the Heavenly Throne, as it is said, \u201cRepent, O Israel, all the way to the LORD your God\u201d [a creative interpretation of Hosea 14:2] (B. Yoma 86a). Particularly appropriate is the following: \u201cSaid [R. Yehudah ha-Nasi], our holy teacher: Great is the power of repentance, for as soon as a person considers repentance in his heart, at once it [the repentance] rises upward\u2014not for ten miles and not for twenty and not for a hundred, but for a journey of five hundred years\u2014and not to the first heaven but to the second; and not [merely] to the second heaven, but [from there] it [gets to] stand before the Heavenly Throne; it is thus that Hosea says, \u2018Repent, O Israel, all the way to the LORD your God\u2019.\u201d
\n3:8. And in the one next to these \u201cThe one\u201d would seem to refer to the heaven next to the middle one just described; but that would probably mean the third (rather than the first), an unlikely prospect. Perhaps the original meant \u201cand in the place next to these [angels],\u201d namely, in that same second heaven, are some other angels.
\nthrones and dominions A category of angels (the latter apparently hostile in the NT Eph. 6:12; Col. 1:13, 1:15; 2:15; but evidently not in 1 En. 61:10 or 2 En. 20:1).
\nin which praises are always offered to God \u201cAlways\u201d here means continuously; this is the laus perpetua offered in heaven, a Rabbinic commonplace; see e.g., Gen. Rab. 78:2, perhaps deriving from Ps. 145:2.
\n3:9. indeed, the heavens and the earth and the abysses [themselves] tremble a near quote of Sir. 16:18, \u201cBehold the heaven, the heaven of the heavens, the earth and the abyss tremble at His visitation.\u201d
\nat the presence of His majesty This unusual phrase may be the result of a mistake in transmission of \u201cat the majesty of His presence.\u201d
\n4:1. the LORD will execute judgment Lit., \u201cwill do judgment,\u201d i.e., ya\u2019aseh mishpat, will punish the guilty and vindicate the righteous (Gen. 18:25 etc.).
\nfor when From the context, \u201calthough\u201d would seem more appropriate here; that is, despite all the divine signs that follow, people will persist in their sinning. The Gk. hoti here may thus represent Heb. ki, which can have adversative force: Exod. 13:17; Deut. 14:7; Josh. 17:18; Ps. 25:11, etc.
\nboulders are being split \u201cBehold, My word is like fire, says, the LORD, and like a hammer that splits a boulder\u201d (Jer. 23:29).
\nthe sun is extinguished \u2026 the fire is trembling The verb seems wrong, but the mss. offers no help here.
\nthe invisible Spirits are melting away These marauding, evil beings are at last being wiped out.
\nand the underworld is taking spoils at the suffering of the Most High a very problematic clause. As Charles suggested, reading skuleuomenou in the active sense, \u201ctaking spoils,\u201d seems more likely than the passive form reflected in some translations, since the active verb would thus refer to the underworld (Heb. she\u2019ol) swallowing up its human victims; however, \u201csuffering [Gk. path\u0113] of the Most High\u201d seems unlikely here, since this is all happening because \u201cthe LORD will execute judgment.\u201d Perhaps \u201cat the will of the Most High\u201d is the intended idea. Note that this whole long verse seems to be an interpolation: it comes out of nowhere and does not connect with what follows.
\n4:2. Therefore the Most High has heard your prayer mentioned in 2:4; \u201cand to become a son to Him\u201d: Deut. 14:1, that is, beloved to Him, \u201ca servant and a minister to His countenance,\u201d serving before His very presence in the earthly temple. This whole verse clearly refers not only to Levi himself but to his descendants, including the Hasmonean rulers who sponsored the writing of the Testaments.
\n4:3. You will cause the light of knowledge A reflection of the Levitical role as teachers, Deut. 33:10. Levi was therefore, from an early point, typologically connected with the light of knowledge: see below on 14:3, 16:3.
\n4:4. a blessing will be given to you and to all your seed In the light of the preceding two verses, which describe the priestly duties of Levi and his descendants, it seems likely that the original text spoke of a blessing being \u201cgiven by you and all your seed,\u201d that is, the priestly blessing described in Num. 6:23\u201327. In such passive constructions, the writer would indicate \u201cby\u201d by using the Heb. particle le-, the same particle used otherwise for \u201cto.\u201d The Greek translator made a simple grammatical error.
\n4:5. wisdom and understanding have been given to you Levi, personally, \u201cso that you may instruct your sons\u201d about performing all the duties listed above.
\n5:1. Then the angel opened the gates of heaven But didn\u2019t this happen already in 2:5? Perhaps the author means the gates of the third heaven, promised in 2:9 and described in 3:5, but entered only now.
\nI saw the holy temple the heavenly temple, in which, by a common Second Temple period understanding, God regularly presides \u201con a glorious throne.\u201d
\n5:3. he gave me a shield and a sword Ancient interpreters wondered how it could have happened that two men, Simeon and Levi, were able to kill all the men of Shechem; even the fact of their recent circumcision could not have so incapacitated the Shechemites as to prevent them from fighting for their lives. Searching for an answer, interpreters fixed on the Bible\u2019s exact wording in its assertion that \u201cSimeon and Levi \u2026 took each his sword and came upon the city unmolested\u201d (Gen. 34:25). At first, no doubt, the word \u201cunmolested\u201d (Heb. betah, translated in the LXX as \u201cin safety\u201d) only seemed to exacerbate the problem. But the nearby mention of their taking \u201ceach his sword\u201d suggested that it was this action that led to Simeon and Levi entering the city undisturbed and in complete safety\u2014there must have been something about those swords that assured the two of absolute victory! From this developed the idea that they had been given some sort of special weaponry from heaven, a motif attested elsewhere in Second Temple literature (Jdt. 9:2, Jos. Asen. 23:14).
\nExecute judgment on Shechem This clarifies another point: the morally ambiguous act of killing all the males in the city to avenge a rape is defined as nothing less than a divinely ordered punishment; indeed, the angel adds, \u201cI will be with you, for the LORD has sent me.\u201d
\n5:4. as it is written in the Heavenly Tablets The deed of Simeon and Levi \u201cwas recorded as a just act for them\u201d in the Heavenly Tablets, where it was also written that Levi and his descendants were awarded the priesthood as a result (Jub. 30:17\u201320). On the Heavenly Tablets, see below on T. Ash. 2:8. Note that our verse as a whole seems to be an intrusion, since 5:5 appears as a direct response to the angel\u2019s words in 5:3. The fact that the Testaments otherwise refer to the Heavenly Tablets only rarely, preferring to speak of the \u201cwritings of Enoch,\u201d may also indicate that this verse was added later.
\n5:5. Please sir This is Heb. bi adoni, used in speaking with ordinary human beings (Gen. 43:20; Num. 12:11) as well as angels (Judg. 6:13); \u201csir\u201d is thus the proper translation of Gk. kurie here, not \u201cLORD.\u201d
\ntell me your name Not an uncommon request of angels, Gen. 32:30; Judg. 13:17; cf. Exod. 3:13\u201315.
\n5:6. the angel who intervenes on behalf of the people of Israel In an earlier day, Deut. 32:7\u20139 was interpreted to mean that Israel alone did not need a guardian angel, since God protected it directly; in some Second Temple sources, however, even Israel has to have an angel who brings its case before God; see also below on T. Dan. 5:4.
\nso that no one can utterly destroy them True, the ten northern tribes may be lost for a time, but a remnant will still remain, and in the end all of Israel will be reunited.
\n5:7. I woke up and blessed the Most High Some mss. add: \u201cand the angel who intercedes for the people of Israel and for all the righteous,\u201d but this may be secondary, since God alone is usually blessed; \u201call the righteous\u201d may be the Christian interpolator\u2019s addition.
\n6:1. And when I went to my father Jacob, who had apparently settled in Shechem (Gen. 33:18).
\nthe name of the mountain is also Shield, which is near Gebal, to the south of Abila These geographic details are somewhat confusing. In keeping with the northern interpretation mentioned in connection with 2:3, the mountain known as Shield would be Mount Hermon, called Siryon in Deut. 3:8\u20139, a name similar to Heb. shiryan (Isa. 59:17 etc.) or shiryon (1 Sam. 17:5, 38, etc.), the Heb. word for \u201cbody armor.\u201d As for its being \u201cnear Gebal, to the south of Abila,\u201d this might seem to refer to the port city of Gebal, slightly north of Beirut (Gebal is called Byblos in Greek); \u201cAbila\u201d might then be Abilene, about ten miles northwest of Mount Hermon. But all this would put the events far from Shechem, where Jacob had taken up residence with his family before the rape of Dinah took place; no source, biblical or otherwise, suggests Jacob was anywhere near those northern sites. Some scholars have therefore concluded that the original geographic data were distorted in the course of the text\u2019s transmission. According to this theory, all the original place names pointed to the area of Shechem and the nearby mountains Ebal (called Mount Gaibal in the LXX) and Mount Gerizim. But a misunderstanding arose from the mention of Abel Mayim as the site of Levi\u2019s dream vision (this name still appears in ALD 4:2, but was apparently changed to Abel Maul in our text). Someone reading the name \u201cAbel Mayim\u201d must have identified it as the same Abel Mayim mentioned in 2 Chron. 16:4 (see above on 2:3), in the far north of biblical Israel. This misidentification then led the person to identify the nearby mountain in question as the far northern Mount Hermon. It seems, however, that there was a different Abel Mayim located near Shechem (the place later known in Arabic as bet al ma, \u201cthe house of the water\u201d). If so, Levi had his dream vision quite close to where he had gone to join his father, and the nearby mountain where Levi found his weaponry was originally Mount Gerizim, whose name must therefore have been etymologized in the original text not as the mountain of the Shield but the mountain of the Axe (Heb. garzen). (It was presumably some later hand that changed the text from \u201cAxe\u201d to \u201cShield\u201d to fit the Mount Hermon\/Siryon identification in Deut. 3:8\u20139.) Mount Gerizim is indeed \u201cnear Gebal [i.e., near Mount Ebal], to the south of Abila [Abel Mehola].\u201d In keeping with all this, the original Hebrew must have had Levi report that \u201cI found an axe,\u201d with which he then killed Shechem. This in itself was a modification of a still older exegetical motif, according to which Levi and\/or Simeon had been given not an axe but a sword (Jdt. 9:2; Jos. Asen. 23:14; and T. Levi 5:3, where the motif is modified to \u201ca shield and a sword\u201d in order to fit the misidentification of the mountain with Mount Hermon\/Siryon, the \u201cmountain of the Shield\u201d). This motif of the divinely given sword was based on the mention of an apparently extraordinary sword in Gen. 34:25; see above on 5:3. Finally, it is to be noted that T. Levi 6:1 is itself an obvious intrusion in the text: Levi has already received his divinely given weaponry in 5:3, \u201ca shield and a sword\u201d; why should he be given a second piece of weaponry here?
\n6:2. And I kept these words Lit., \u201cthese words,\u201d a mistranslation of Heb. devarim; the miraculous events just described in 5:1\u20137 (cf. ALD 4:13).
\n6:3. that he should tell the sons of Hamor not to be circumcised The biblical story of the revenge for Dinah\u2019s rape contains an apparent contradiction. \u201cJacob\u2019s sons\u201d\u2014presumably, all of them\u2014\u201canswered Shechem and his father Hamor \u2026 with guile.\u2026 and said to them: we cannot give our sister to a man who is uncircumcised, for that is a disgrace among us\u201d (Gen. 34:13\u201314). This, of course, was a trick: they wanted the Shechemites to undergo a mass circumcision merely in order to leave them all in weakened condition and thus make them easier to kill. But if all the sons were involved in this trick, why was it that only two of them, Simeon and Levi, actually entered the town and killed them? Shouldn\u2019t all the brothers have participated in the slaughter if all were in on the plot? Out of this problem developed the motif (found here and elsewhere) that Jacob and most of his sons were actually willing to have Dinah marry Hamor\u2019s son Shechem; it was only Levi (or elsewhere, Simeon) who could not go along with the deal, since he was \u201cso stirred up\u201d by his sister\u2019s rape. That is why he urged his father and older brother to withdraw the offer and \u201ctell the sons of Hamor not to be circumcised.\u201d
\n6:4\u20135. I killed Shechem first, and Simeon [killed] Hamor. And \u2026 my brothers struck the city at sword-point This assertion also conflicts with the biblical narrative, since there Simeon and Levi kill all the inhabitants and the other brothers come only later to plunder the corpses (Gen. 34:27). But the Testmant of Levi here incorporates an old interpretive motif that sought to reconcile Gen. 34:27 with Gen. 49:6, which says of Simeon and Levi that \u201cin their anger they killed a man.\u201d If they each were responsible for only one death, then it followed that the other brothers must have been the ones to finish off the rest of the male inhabitants. Theodotus\u2019s account preserves the same motif, while the LXX translated Gen. 49:6 as \u201cin their anger they killed men.\u201d
\n6:6. And when Father The Aramaism abba, lit. \u201cthe father\u201d; above on 2:1.
\nand in the blessings He gave his children at the end of his life (Genesis 49), \u201che did otherwise\u201d to Simeon and Levi, cursing them instead of blessing (Gen. 49:5\u20137).
\n6:7. we did this [thing] contrary to his wishes At the end of the biblical story, Jacob reproves Simeon and Levi for doing what they did: \u201cYou have brought trouble on me, making me odious among the inhabitants of the land\u201d (Gen. 34:30).
\nand he became sick This detail is not found as such in the Bible, but it derives from Jacob\u2019s phrase \u201cmaking me odious\u201d (Heb. hib\u2019ashtem oti lit. \u201cyou have made me stink\u201d) in this same biblical verse. In the Aramaic spoken in Judea at the time of T. Levi\u2019s composition, the similar-sounding root (b-y-sh) meant both \u201cto be bad\u201d and \u201cto be sick\u201d; hence Jacob\u2019s words might sound to an Aramaic speaker as if he were saying, \u201cyou made me sick.\u201d
\n6:8. God\u2019s verdict on Shechem was negative Lit., \u201cGod\u2019s verdict was for ill.\u201d
\nsince they had sought to treat Sarah in the same manner A reference to Gen. 20:1\u201316, where Abimelekh, the king of Gerar, almost has relations with Sarah. The details of the story make it clear that Abimelekh was guiltless, but the motif in T. Levi presents it as part of an overall pattern in the Canaanites\u2019 behavior; see below.
\n6:9. persecuted our ancestor Abraham when he was a stranger That is, although he was a stranger and thus deserving of decent treatment. The reference is not clear, but perhaps this alludes to Abraham\u2019s struggle to buy a burial place for Sarah in Gen. 23, since there Abraham specifically notes, \u201cI am a resident alien [i.e., a stranger] among you\u201d (Gen. 23:4).
\nand they ill-treated his flocks This refers to Gen. 13:7; the author interprets the casual mention of \u201cthe Canaanites and the Perizzites\u201d in this verse as implying that it was they who were responsible for the quarreling between Abraham\u2019s herdsmen and Lot\u2019s.
\nwhen they were pregnant This seems to be a mistake: Heb. nitrabbu (grew numerous) was mistaken for nit\u2019abberu (became pregnant). That Abraham\u2019s flocks had become numerous is mentioned specifically in the same episode, Gen. 13:5\u20137.
\nEblae, his home-born slave, they grievously tormented This reference is unclear, as is the name \u201cEblae\u201d (other mss.: Ieblae, Geblae, Iekblai, etc.). The author may have in mind Eliezer, Abraham\u2019s servant (see Gen. 15:2, which in the LXX is rendered as: \u201cthe son of Masek my home-born maidservant, this one [is] Damascus Eliezer\u201d).
\n6:10\u201311. they treated all strangers in this way Hence, the apparently lopsided revenge carried out by Simeon and Levi was really just divine punishment long overdue.
\n7:1. for through you That is, through your offspring.
\nthe LORD will reject the Canaanites Sometimes, Gk. exoudenein means \u201cput to shame,\u201d but what Levi means seems closer to \u201cdestroy\u201d or \u201creject.\u201d
\n7:2\u20133. Shechem will be called a city of fools This is an extended pun. In the biblical story, the brothers had described the rape as a nebalah (Gen. 34:7), a word best translated as \u201coutrage,\u201d often with sexual connotations. But the word nabal (to which nebalah is connected) often means \u201cfool\u201d (Deut. 32:6; Jer. 17:11; Ps. 14:1, etc.); having thus committed this nebalah, Levi says, the city will henceforth be called a city of nebalim, fools. All this is connected to another biblical verse, Deut. 32:21, in which God announces that He will \u201cincense them [Israel] with a non-people [and] vex them with a nation of fools.\u201d In Second Temple times, this was taken as a reference to the inhabitants of Shechem and Samaria in general, since they were commonly held to be a conglomeration of different peoples (hence a \u201cnon-people\u201d) installed by the Assyrians after the true inhabitants had been exiled (2 Kings 17:24\u201331). Ben Sira reflects this interpretation: \u201cWith two nations my soul is vexed, and a third [that] is not a people: those who live in Seir and Philistia, and the foolish nation that dwells in Shechem [capital of Samaria]\u201d (Sir. 50:25\u201326). But why were they called a \u201cfoolish nation\u201d here and in Deut. 32:21? Ben Sira didn\u2019t say. T. Levi\u2019s answer is that this appellation derives from the nebalah that they committed in raping Dinah, that is, \u201cthey did indeed do a great folly [nebalah] in Israel by defiling our sister.\u201d
\n7:4. we then departed and went to Bethel as reported in Gen. 35:1\u20138. The Torah did not explain why this trip to Bethel was necessary, but ancient interpreters concluded that its purpose was to allow Jacob to fulfill the vow he had made twenty years earlier (Gen. 28:20\u201322): see Pirke R. El. 37, Lekah Tov 32:14; Ant. 1:341; Gen. Rab. 81:1\u20132, etc. Once arrived there, however, Jacob still could not offer his tithe or other sacrifices since he himself was not a priest\u2014Isaac still exercised that exclusive function. Logically, Jacob should have been the next priest. But Levi now had a second vision indicating that he, not Jacob, would be the next priest and, consequently, the one to offer sacrifices at Bethel and receive Jacob\u2019s tithe.
\n8:1. there I again had a vision like the previous one Recounted starting in 2:5; it was \u201clike\u201d the first in that both announced Levi\u2019s selection as a priest.
\nafter we had spent seventy days there Surely a mistake. According to Jub. 31\u201332, on which this section of T. Levi is based, Jacob arrives in Bethel on the first day of the seventh month (Jub. 31:3); thereafter they visit Isaac in Hebron and then return to Bethel; \u201cthe fourteenth of that month\u201d (Jub. 32:2) is the morning after Levi\u2019s second vision, and he begins to function fully as priest on the next day. In T. Levi, the order is slightly different in that Levi\u2019s second vision precedes the trip to Isaac; nevertheless, it seems highly unlikely that T. Levi would introduce an unprecedented (and unnecessary) seventy-day waiting period at Bethel, especially since this chronology departs so radically from that of Jubilees. More likely, Levi\u2019s second vision occurred after seven days at Bethel, not seventy; after Jacob\u2019s visit to Hebron with his two sons, Levi offered his father\u2019s sacrifices on the fifteenth of the month, as in Jubilees.
\n8:2. And I saw seven men They are really angels, who often appear to humans as men. In the ALD, Levi also has a second vision, apparently also with seven angels, since it concludes \u201cAnd those seven departed from me and I awoke from my sleep\u201d (ALD 4:12\u201313). However, only a small part of the content of that dream has survived in the ALD, and it does not correspond to Levi\u2019s dream here (though the missing part may well have).
\nPut on the tunic of priesthood The text here lists seven types of garments and adornments, each followed by an abstract noun: \u201ctunic of priesthood,\u201d \u201ccrown of righteousness,\u201d etc. The types of garments listed correspond more or less to the actual garments prescribed for the high priest (kohen gadol) in Exod. 28 and elsewhere, though these are conventionally eight in number, not seven: see; M. Yoma 7:5. (Apparently the avnei shoham [onyx or lapis lazuli stones, Exod. 28:9\u201310] have been omitted.) The priestly garments were of great significance in Second Temple times, commented on extensively by ben Sira (Sir. 45:6\u201313), Let. Aris. 96, 99; Philo (Spec. Laws 1:80\u201397, etc.) and Josephus (Ant. 3:151\u2013178). It is thus significant that in T. Levi each garment is attached to an abstract noun; these may represent some symbolic interpretation of the garments, akin to the idea in Hellenistic sources that the garments in general were \u201ca representation of the entire cosmos\u201d (Wis. 18:24), a \u201clikeness and copy of the universe\u201d (Spec. Laws 1:84), etc. At any rate, the mention of these abstract nouns is probably not to be understood as an attempt to downplay the importance of the actual garments worn or, more generally, of the priesthood and the temple, but on the contrary to endow them with greater significance. Moreover, as in Jubilees and the ALD, this dream in T. Levi signifies his inauguration into the priesthood and the divine choice of his descendants as the future priests and Levites.
\nthe turban of [?] Some mss. read \u201cthe turban of the head,\u201d others \u201cof the sign,\u201d but neither fits the overall pattern of this list; no doubt the proper text has been lost.
\n8:4. the first anointed me with holy oil Priests were indeed anointed with holy oil as part of their initiation (Exod. 28:41; 29:7, etc.). But what follows does not really fit with the preceding inventory of priestly garments: there is some overlap, but other items are missing.
\nthe staff of judgment The high priest did not necessarily have a staff, and \u201cjudgment\u201d was associated with the breastplate (Heb. hoshen, Gk. logion) mentioned in 8:2.
\n8:5. holy garment of glory A loaded phrase, since it had been conventionally used to describe the diaphanous clothing worn by Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, which was typologically identified with the Temple.
\n8:8. a branch of rich olive A curious and unprecedented addition. Moreover, the \u201ccrown\u201d of 8:9 and the \u201cdiadem\u201d of 8:10 seem repetitive (\u201cdiadem,\u201d in Gk. as in English, is a fancy word for crown). It would seem, therefore, that these three items were intended to correspond to three separate items of priestly headgear: the \u201ccrown\u201d may be the priestly mitre, while the \u201cdiadem\u201d might correspond to the gold plate Heb. nezer ha-kodesh of Exod. 29:6 etc.\u2014translated in Targum Onkelos as \u201ccrown.\u201d It was attached to the mitre. On the gold plate was an ornament (Heb. tzitz), apparently in the form of a leaf or flower, though the same word can indicate a branch in Aramaic, hence, perhaps, the \u201cbranch of rich olive.\u201d
\n8:10. filled my hands with incense \u201cWith incense\u201d is present in both ms. families but is apparently either a later addition or an attempt to explain the biblical expression \u201cfill the hands\u201d (without specifying what they were filled with), a Hebrew idiom meaning to initiate into the priesthood.
\n8:11. Levi, your descendants will be divided into three offices As 8:17 goes on to explain, the three are the priesthood, the judiciary, and the education of the people of Israel. The first is self-explanatory; the second derives from Deut. 17:8\u201312, and the third from that passage as well as Deut. 33:10. This list ought to be compared to Jub. 31:15, where Isaac says of Levi\u2019s descendants, \u201cthey will be princes, judges and leaders of all the descendants of Jacob\u2019s sons,\u201d as well as ALD 13:16, a fragmentary text (probably derived from Jub. 31:15) that refers to \u201cleaders and judges \u2026 even priests and kings.\u201d See also below on 18:2.
\n8:16. your descendants will share the LORD\u2019s table That is, the priests will get to eat a portion of the sacrifices offered to God; cf. Jub. 31:16: \u201cHis [God\u2019s] table is to belong to you; you and your sons are to eat [from] it. May your table be filled throughout all history; may your food not be lacking throughout all ages.\u201d
\n8:17\u201319. priests and judges and scribes Scribes were no mere copyists, but sages and interpreters of the Torah.
\nfor at their direction will the sanctuary be maintained During most of the Second Temple period, the center of Judean power was the Jerusalem Temple.
\nAnd \u2026 I understood that this was like the first dream Above on 4:2\u20135.
\n9:1. Judah and I went up with our father Jacob to Isaac This trip is not mentioned in Genesis (it is not to be confused with Jacob\u2019s later trip to Isaac, when Isaac dies\u2014Gen. 35:27\u201329). The author of Jubilees had deduced this earlier trip\u2019s existence from the fact that Deborah, Rebekah\u2019s maidservant, is reported to have died at Bethel (Gen. 35:8) in the company of Jacob. How did she get to be at Bethel with Jacob? She must have traveled there with him after he had visited Isaac and Rebekah, her mistress, following Jacob\u2019s return from Aram; see Jub. 31:26\u201330. The same trip is mentioned in passing (but, as here, without the textual justification of Deborah\u2019s death) in ALD 5:1.
\n9:2. in keeping with all the words of the visions that I had seen That is, the two visions reported so far, the first at Abel Maul (2:3) and the second, just concluded, at Bethel. What Levi means is that, after he had had these two dreams and reported them to no one, Isaac independently \u201cblessed me in keeping with\u201d them, that is, he independently confirmed Levi\u2019s selection as the next priest. Isaac\u2019s blessing is reported at length in Jub. 31:12\u201317. It is certainly significant that, in both the ALD and T. Levi, Levi\u2019s prophetic visions precede Isaac\u2019s blessing and that in these sources that blessing is dismissed in a single sentence, whereas in Jubilees the opposite is true: Isaac\u2019s blessing is reported at length and precedes the report of a (single) vision of Levi\u2019s, which is dismissed in a sentence. For the author of Jubilees, what was significant was the existence of a great chain of priests, stemming back to Adam, in which each retiring high priest passed on his functions and his knowledge to his successor. By contrast, the ALD is an unabashed celebration of Levi\u2014visionary, priestly founder, and future leader of Israel\u2014so of course Isaac\u2019s role is unimportant.
\n9:3. And when we came [back] to Bethel To offer the long-delayed sacrifices that Jacob had vowed (Gen. 28:20\u201322); see above on 7:4.
\nmy father Jacob had a vision concerning me, that I should be their priest before God What is the point of yet another prophetic vision, this time of Jacob\u2019s? Charles suggested that Jub. 32:1 might originally have read \u201cAnd Jacob dreamed\u201d instead of \u201cAnd Levi dreamed,\u201d but this seems unlikely (see above on 9:2); it is not impossible, however, that the version of Jubilees used by the author of T. Levi contained such a mistake. Alternatively, Jacob\u2019s vision may have been introduced to justify his immediate acceptance of Levi as the next priest, but that seems less likely; surely he would have accepted Isaac\u2019s blessing as an authoritative changing of the guard.
\n9:4. And he got up early in the morning A near-exact citation of Jub. 32:2; this detail is missing in ALD 5:2.
\n9:5. And [then] we went to Hebron to settle there The detour to Bethel had been simply to pay off Jacob\u2019s vow; now the family returns to Hebron to be close to Isaac. This is the biblical trip reported in Gen. 35:27.
\n9:6. And Isaac summoned me repeatedly As the previous priest, it was Isaac\u2019s duty to teach Levi all about how to offer sacrifices. However, T. Levi stresses that all Isaac really did was \u201cremind me of the law of the LORD, just as the angel of the God had shown me\u201d\u2014that is, Levi had already received his priestly instructions from the angel (although this was not mentioned in the report of his two visions), and Isaac merely reminded him here of the rules.
\n9:7. And he taught me the law of the priesthood Presumably, such things as the general rules of cultic purity and the preparations necessary before the actual offering of sacrifices of various classes, listed next.
\n9:9. And he said: Beware, my child Cf. ALD 6:3.
\n9:10. So acquire for yourself a wife Lit., \u201cTake for yourself,\u201d Heb. kah lekha that is, purchase her.
\none without blemish or disqualifying feature a ref. to Lev. 21:14.
\nand not of the stock of a foreign nations That is, \u201cof his own kin\u201d in Lev. 21:14.
\n9:11. And bathe before entering the sanctuary Greek properly distinguishes \u201cbathing\u201d from \u201cwashing,\u201d as does the corresponding passage in ALD 7:1\u20137:3; the former refers to full immersion in the mikveh, the latter to washing the hands and feet.
\nand when you are [about to do the] sacrificing that is, just before, not during, the sacrifice; cf. ALD 7:3.
\n9:12. of twelve [kinds of] trees that always have leaves That is, evergreen (as opposed to deciduous) trees; Jub. 21:12\u201314 lists fourteen types of acceptable trees; fourteen evergreens are mentioned (but not listed) in 1 En. 3:1; ALD 7:6 lists twelve.
\nas Abraham taught me as well The priestly instructions underlying those of ALD 6\u201310 are more ancient than Jubilees, as well of course as the version of them in T. Levi. They were presented in the ALD as Isaac\u2019s teachings to Levi, but the author of Jubilees\u2014champion of the \u201cchain of priests\u201d scenario\u2014saw no reason that they should have first been promulgated by Isaac; he therefore put them in the mouth of Abraham (Jub. 21:1\u201320) who, along with Jacob, was the great hero of his book. This in turn influenced the compiler of the ALD. He could not very well have Abraham instruct Levi directly\u2014he was long dead\u2014but mindful of Jubilees, he did take the trouble to have Isaac mention twice that \u201cthus my father Abraham commanded me\u201d (ALD 10:3, 10; cf. 7:4). This in turn is reflected in Isaac\u2019s remark here. This is hardly all there was to the priestly instructions found in the ALD: they go on to discuss such matters as the burning and salting of the sacrificial animal, the meal and incense offered, the proper proportions of wood, salt, fine flour, oil, wine, and frankincense, the covering of blood, and other matters (ALD 8\u201310). One manuscript of the Testaments (Mount Athos Koutloumous codex 39; see above on 2:4) incorporated a large section of this material; by rights, it ought to have appeared there in this part of the text, but for some reason it was inserted after T. Levi 18:2; see there.
\n9:14. and of all firstfruits and of wine offer the first That is, the best, \u201cpart\u201d: a restatement of Exod. 23:19.
\nsalt every sacrifice Represents Lev. 2:13.
\n10:1. for I have passed on to you those things that I heard from my fathers See above on 9:12.
\n10:2. all the impiety and transgression that you will do Such sentiments could hardly have been uttered by the original Hasmonean author of the Testaments; perhaps they came from the same hand that changed the \u201cobey Levi\u201d passages to \u201cobey Levi and Judah,\u201d which sought to limit the Hasmoneans\u2019 temporal power. See also below on 14:7\u20138.
\nlater times Heb. aharit ha-yamim. Eventually came to have an eschatological interpretation (Gk. \u201cthe end of the ages\u201d), and this phrase prompted the Christian interpolator to insert a brief addition.
\ncausing great troubles to be sent Lit., \u201cstirring up great evils.\u201d
\n10:3. until Jerusalem will not bear [you] because of your wickedness Most mss.: \u201cuntil [He] will not bear with Jerusalem,\u201d but object and subject appear to have been switched here, causing the original object, \u201cyou,\u201d to be dropped.
\nso that your shame will not be covered That is, your nudity will be exposed, apparently an allusion to Lam. 1:8, referring to the desolation and dishonor of Jerusalem; if so, perhaps the original text read \u201cher shame.\u201d
\n10:4. there you will be for a reproach and a curse and a source of mockery This may represent any of a number of such biblical phrases, e.g., leherpah ulmashal, lishninah veliklalah, \u201ca disgrace and a byword, a taunt and a curse\u201d (Jer. 24:9), lela\u2019ag ulkeles, \u201ca derision and a mockery\u201d (Ps. 44:4; 79:4), etc. The idea is that when, among the nations, someone wishes to deride or mock someone, he will say: \u201c \u2018You are just like Israel.\u201d
\n10:5. the house that the LORD will choose will be called Jerusalem At this point someone (perhaps a later editor) realized that Levi has been speaking of Jerusalem, whereas God\u2019s choice of Jerusalem was not specified until centuries later; he therefore had Levi add here that he had read about God\u2019s future choice of the city \u201cin the book of the righteous Enoch\u201d: see above on T. Sim. 5:4.
\n11:1. her name was Melcha This is the name of Levi\u2019s wife according to Jub. 34:20 as well as the ALD 11:1 (that part of the ALD has been restored on the basis of the Greek insertion into the Mt. Athos ms.\u2014see above on 9:12; this section is not among the Aramaic fragments of the ALD).
\n11:2. I named him Gershom, since we were strangers in our own land Gershom was the name of both Moses\u2019s and Levi\u2019s firstborn sons. The explanation of the name given here is based on that found for Moses\u2019s son in Exod. 2:22, but with a twist: Moses had named his son Gershom because \u201cI have been a stranger in a foreign land,\u201d whereas Levi, remembering God\u2019s promises to Abraham and Jacob, names his son Gershom because, although the land was his and his brothers\u2019 by divine grant, they still wandered about as sojourners.
\n11:5\u20136. standing high in the middle of a whole gathering [of people] Both elements led Levi to call \u201chim Kohath\u201d: the \u201cstanding high\u201d suggested that he would be \u201c \u2018foremost in greatness,\u2019 \u201d since \u201cKohath\u201d is apparently being linked to the similar sounding yikkehat in Prov. 30:17 and Gen. 49:10, the latter being part of Jacob\u2019s blessing of Judah; in that context, this word was widely interpreted as the \u201cobedience\u201d or \u201crespect\u201d in which Judah would be held: see as well as Jub. 31:18, Tg. Onk. and Tg. Neof. on Gen. 49:10. As for \u201cgathering together,\u201d this was suggested by the similarity of Kohath to Heb. kahal, \u201cgathering of people.\u201d
\n11:7. since he also died [better: since she was close to death] Some mss. read \u201csince he also died,\u201d but this is obviously wrong, since the biblical Merari goes on to marry and father children (see below, 12:3). The version \u201csince he was close to death,\u201d is certainly possible, but given the previous mention of his mother\u2019s difficulty in giving birth and her naming him after \u201cmy bitterness,\u201d it seems more likely that the original version held that she was close to death. Perhaps the Greek translator misread some expression like vatikrab nafshah lamut (cf. Judg. 16:16) as \u201chis soul [instead of \u201cher soul,\u201d a difference of one letter] was close to death.\u201d
\n11:8. since I was [the most] honored then among my brothers A common form of the superlative in Hebrew is \u201cthe X among Y\u201d: cf. Ps. 94:8; Cant. 1:8, etc. Jochebed is here associated with the Heb. kabod, \u201chonor.\u201d ALD 11:10 similarly explains: \u201cFor glory [Aram. yekar] she was born to me, for glory [this time using the Heb. word kabod] to Israel.\u201d
\n12:1. Libni and Shime\u2019i For this and the following genealogical data: Num. 3:18; parallels ALD 12:2.
\n12:4. Amram married my daughter Jochebed Num. 26:59.
\nborn on the same day As in ALD 12:5.
\n12:5. eight years old ALD has \u201ceighteen.\u201d On reflection, it is easy to see how the confusion arose. The great chronological authority in late Second Temple times was the book of Jubilees. There, Levi is said to have been born in am 2127 (Jub. 28:14); he was thus eight when Jacob entered Canaan in AM 2135 (Jub. 29:5), just as T. Levi says here. According to Jubilees, the attack on Shechem took place in AM 2143, when Levi was sixteen (Jub. 30:1). However, someone who did not know the Jubilees chronology and relied solely on the Genesis account might easily have come to the conclusion that Jacob\u2019s arrival in Canaan (Gen. 32\u201333) and the rape of Dinah (Gen. 34) occurred virtually simultaneously, since nothing separates them in the Genesis narrative. Levi must have been at least a young adult when he killed the men of Shechem, so the \u201ceight\u201d was perceived to be an error and was \u201ccorrected\u201d to \u201ceighteen.\u201d This apparently happened even in the copy of the ALD 12:6 found in the Cairo Geniza. But no one who considers the whole of the Genesis narrative could ever accept such a dating. The reason is this: Jacob had stayed with Laban for twenty years (Gen. 31:41) before returning to Canaan; during that stay, he had worked for Laban for seven years before he married Leah, and Levi was the couple\u2019s third son. At the very oldest, then, Levi could have been ten years old when Jacob entered Canaan, though Jubilees\u2019 figure of eight seems more reasonable. Thus, the original text of the ALD must have read \u201ceight,\u201d but somehow that figure was changed to eighteen, perhaps under the influence of the \u201ceighteen\u201d in the next clause. T. Levi may have been based on such a defective text of the ALD, or, equally possible, the same faulty \u201ccorrection\u201d of T. Levi was introduced in the process of its transmission.
\neighteen when I killed Shechem See above on 2:2.
\nand forty when I went down to Egypt With my wife and children, father and brothers (Gen. 45:21); ALD 12:8 has \u201cforty-eight.\u201d
\n13:1. Fear the LORD Some mss.: \u201cFear the LORD your God\u201d (or \u201cour God\u201d); any of these may be the original. Some mss. also add \u201cwith your whole heart,\u201d but this seems less likely, since this expression is never used of fearing God; perhaps it was added mechanically on the basis of its occurrence in the well-known verses Deut. 6:5 and 11:13.
\nwalk in simplicity A key phrase in the Testaments; see above on T. Reub. 4:1, below on T. Iss. 3:1, 4:1\u20135:3.
\n13:2. teach your children to read Having just told his children to act in accordance with the Torah, Levi adds that, while the Torah\u2019s injunctions may be learned by word of mouth, literacy will allow his descendants to know them first-hand.
\nreading God\u2019s Torah unceasingly \u201cAnd now my sons, reading and writing and teaching wisdom to your children\u201d (ALD 13:4).
\n13:3. Everyone who knows God\u2019s Torah will be honored \u201cHe who learns wisdom will [acquire] honor\u201d (ALD 13:5).
\nwherever he may wander, he will not be a foreigner The sense seems to be that, even when he travels to a place where he is unknown, his knowledge of the Torah will soon cause him to be recognized and he will not be treated as a foreigner; cf. ALD 13:8\u20139.
\n13:4. He will gain many friends, more than his parents An odd sentiment! More likely the original Heb. read: haverim rabbim yikneh mehorayah, \u201che will acquire many friends from [his] teaching,\u201d with the last word later being confused with Heb. mehorayv \u201cthan his parents.\u201d In the parallel passage, ALD 13:9 explains that \u201call will wish to learn from his wisdom.\u201d The concept of \u201cacquiring friends\u201d here is reflected in M. Avot 1:6, \u201cAppoint a teacher for yourself, and acquire a friend for yourself,\u201d where the sense is clearly a friend for the purpose of studying Torah together; cf. Sifre Deut. 305, \u201cLet a man acquire a friend for himself who may study Torah with him, Mishnah with him, eat with him, drink with him, and reveal his secrets to him.\u201d
\nmany men will desire to serve him That is, to become his disciples, which, in Rabbinic times, involved not merely studying with a teacher but also serving him Heb. meshammeshim et ha-rav): \u201cEven if someone has studied Scripture and Mishnah but has not served scholars\u2014that person is an ignoramus\u201d (B. Ber. 47b), since there is no substitute for being in close, daily contact with a teacher; this allows the student \u201cto hear the Torah\u201d expounded \u201cfrom his mouth,\u201d rather than his having to rely on secondhand citations from those students who have served him.
\n13:5. act with righteousness Lit., \u201cDo righteousness [Gk. dikaiosun\u0113].\u201d This word may be intended here, as elsewhere, in a special sense: dikaiosun\u0113 was sometimes used as a kind of shorthand among Greek-speaking Jews for \u201ckeeping the commandments of the Torah.\u201d
\nso that you may find [it] in heaven That is, you yourself may be judged to be righteous and enter into heaven.
\n13:6. sow good things in your souls Sowing, planting seeds, is a common biblical metaphor for expending effort now in the hope of future gain.
\nso that you may find them in your life Acquiring good traits of character now will yield benefit in the future, in life on earth.
\nbut if you sow evil things Cf. Prov. 22:8, \u201cHe who sows injustice will harvest sinfulness.\u201d This verse parallels ALD 13:3: \u201cIf you s[o] w righteousness and truth, you will bring in a blessed and good harvest. He who sows good brings in a goodly [harvest], and he who sows evil, his sowing turns against him.\u201d
\n13:7. Acquire wisdom through the fear of God \u201cThe fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom\/knowledge\u201d (Ps. 111:10; Prov. 1:7), interpreted here to mean that such fear is the means to acquiring wisdom.
\nnot even Gk. ei m\u0113, \u201cif not,\u201d but apparently intended in the sense of \u201cnot even\u201d or \u201cnot at all,\u201d cf. Lat. si minus \u201cnot in the slightest.\u201d
\nthe blindness of impiety and the mutilations of sin Presumably, the impious may even blind the sage and the sinful may mutilate his body, but they still cannot take away his wisdom.
\n13:8. For it will be to him a light A common image for wisdom, but perhaps intended here as the antidote to the physical blindness inflicted in the previous verse.
\n13:9. and practices them A great Rabbinic theme: \u201cIt is not study [of the Torah] that is essential, but the deeds [that result from such study]\u201d; \u201cEveryone whose deeds surpass his wisdom, his wisdom will endure; and everyone whose wisdom surpasses his deeds, his wisdom will not endure\u201d (M. Avot 1:17, 3:12).
\nas was my brother Joseph Gen. 41:40.
\n14:1. I have found out from the writing of Enoch See above on T. Sim. 5:4 (some mss. omit this).
\ninvolving yourselves in all [manner of] evil Lit., \u201cstretching out hands to all wickedness\u201d: (Heb. shalah yad).
\nand your brothers will be put to shame because of you See above on 10:2.
\n14:2. our father Israel is innocent Lit., \u201cpure\u201d (Gk. katharos, Heb. naki). A puzzling assertion; perhaps this whole verse was inserted by the Christian editor, but even so, who would consider Jacob\/Israel guilty of the impiety of later priests?
\n14:3. the sky is purer than than the earth \u201cPurer\u201d here is used in the sense of \u201cbrighter,\u201d perhaps as a conscious allusion to Exod. 24:10, \u201clike the very sky for purity (tohar).\u201d Targum Onkelos translates \u201clike the sight of the sky for brightness.\u201d The Greek mss. differ on the precise wording that follows, but the sense is clear: the Levites are \u201cthe lights of Israel,\u201d illuminating the other tribes (the rest of heaven), and certainly brighter than the mere earth, i.e., \u201call the nations.\u201d The equivalence of Levi with light ultimately derives from Deut. 33:10 and is reflected in the version of this verse in 4Q175 Testimonia 17: \u201cLet them [the Levites] cause your laws to shine forth to Jacob\u201d and perhaps even in the LXX translation of this verb (d\u0113l\u014dsousin, \u201cmake visible, explain\u201d) in the same verse. Cf. above, 4:3, and below, 16:3.
\n14:4. But if you If the heavenly lights \u201care darkened,\u201d then the nations will grope about, \u201cliving in blindness.\u201d Cf. Isa. 60:2\u20133.
\nYou will bring down a curse From the other nations.
\nbecause the light of the Torah It would seem that the author has switched metaphors in midstream: now it is the Torah, not the Levites or Israel, that is the heavenly light; but it is the Levites who in any case will teach Torah (Deut. 33:10). Note also the equivalence of Levi\u2019s knowledge with light (above on 14:3). In any event, the \u201clight of the Torah\u201d is a common notion, going back to Prov. 6:23; Ps. 119:105, and other passages.
\nthis you wish to destroy by teaching commandments contrary to God\u2019s requirements A fascinating remark, since it seems to accuse someone\u2014the ruling temple priesthood?\u2014of teaching wrong halakhot (applications of divine law). Noteworthy too is the universalist assertion that the Torah \u201cwas given to illuminate every man.\u201d
\n14:5. You will rob the offerings of the LORD Biblically inspired accusations, here and in the next verse, apparently aimed specifically at Levi\u2019s descendants, the future Temple priesthood; cf. 1 Sam. 2:29; Mal. 1:12.
\nshamelessly eating [them] with prostitutes Prov. 7:14.
\n14:6. You will teach the commandments out of greed demanding payment (cf. Mic. 3:11). This was forbidden in Rabbinic Judaism: M. Avot 4:5 B. Ned. 37a, etc.
\nyou will render married women impure Adultery might seem to be the intended meaning here, although, following the previous clause, this may be intended rather to refer to improper rulings about married women in such matters as divorce and remarriage, menstrual impurity, and the like. Some mss. add here: \u201cand defile the virgins of Jerusalem,\u201d which seems to have been inspired by the \u201cvirgins of Jerusalem\u201d who are mentioned in Lam. 2:10, a text which elsewhere speaks of (married) women and virgins being violated in the fall of Jerusalem. But the remark does not seem to fit the context here.
\nyou will marry the daughters of the nations That is, non-Jews.
\npurifying them with purification contrary to the Torah Perhaps purification (e.g., after menstruation, childbirth, etc.) proper to Israelite women alone, or possibly some early form of conversion\u2014reminiscent of Ezra 6:21, where apparent non-Jews \u201cseparated themselves from the uncleanness of the nations\u201d and thus became fit to join the returnees from exile as purified Jews. Such an early procedure may have been permitted for the spouses of ordinary Jews but forbidden to Levites; cf. 4QMMT col. 4:4\u201311.
\n14:7\u20138 These two verses, along with the previous two, mirror well the reports of the corrupt Jerusalem priesthood in the 1st century BCE, and the tone of injury and outrage here in particular bespeaks a contemporary observer; see above on 10:2.
\npuffed up (Gk. phusio\u014d) is reminiscent of Hab. 2:4 (\u201chis spirit within him is puffed up\u201d), interpreted in Pesher Habakkuk as referring to the enemies of the Qumran community.
\n15:1 Levi \u201cpredicts\u201d the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple and the subsequent Babylonian exile.
\n15:3. And everyone who sees you will flee from you Some mss.: \u201cAnd all who hate you will rejoice at your destruction.\u201d Both seem possibly original, but the former a bit more likely; cf. Ps. 38:12.
\n15:4. if not for our forefathers A restatement of Deut. 9:5.
\n16:1. I have found out from the book of Enoch Above on T. Sim. 5:4; missing by mistake from some mss. The reference to the \u201cbook of Enoch\u201d may be intended to evoke specifically 1 En. 93:1\u201310
\nand 91:11\u201317 (the \u201cApocalypse of Weeks\u201d), which may have served as a model for this section.
\nthat you will be led astray Lit., \u201cdeceived,\u201d presumably by the Angel of deceit, Beliar\/Satan.
\nfor seventy weeks [of years] Seventy groups of seven years apiece; this prediction is based on Dan. 9:24. By this the author would seek to include the entire period from the time of Jeremiah\u2019s prediction (Jer. 25:11\u20132; 29:10\u201314) in the 6th century BCE through the end of the 2nd century BCE.
\nrender the priesthood defiled Its holiness compromised.
\n16:3. A man who [seeks to] renew the Torah \u2026 you will call a deceiver Some have considered the entire verse to be a Christian interpolation, but this need not be so; indeed, it seems somewhat unlikely that even very early Christians would describe their Savior\u2019s mission as \u201crenewing\u201d the Torah. Rather, it seems that the first part of this verse referred to some sort of religious reformer, perhaps a Hasmonean priest, or possibly someone such as the founder of the Essene movement. Note in this connection the Qumran text cited above on 14:3, 4Q541 frag. 9 col. 1, which seems to describe a wonderful priestly figure, who however\u2014like the figure mentioned in our verse\u2014will be calumnied by his enemies. Whether or not our verse and this passage refer to the same person, there can be little doubt that when the Christian interpolator of the Testaments read this verse, he saw in it a prediction of the Christian messiah and consequently added to it a more specific reference.
\n16:4. And your sanctuary will be deserted because of this If the previous verse is not altogether a Christian interpolation, this might seem to refer to the boycotting of the temple by the Qumran covenanters or their congeners, who felt it was \u201cpolluted to the very ground\u201d: cf. CD 6:11\u201312.
\n17:1. just as you have heard about the seventy weeks [of years], so hear now about the priesthood In the verses that follow, the author speaks of the jubilees of the priesthood. T. Levi chapters 17 and 18 are puzzling on several counts. One might think that their theme is the nature of the priesthood in each successive jubilee. But the following verses speak not of each jubilee\u2019s priesthood, but of its priest, as if there were only one priest per jubilee. But if the meaning is the high priest, his term of office depends on his lifetime, not on the beginning or end of any particular jubilee, and in the normal course of things, there must usually have been more than one high priest every forty-nine years. A further difficulty: previous commentators have generally assumed that the priests spoken of in this section start with Levi himself. But if so, the descriptions of each priest do not seem to fit very well with priests known from Scripture and the periods in which they lived do not correspond to jubilees. For example, if Levi is the first priest mentioned, then Kohath should be the next, and after him Amram, and only after him Aaron\u2014but this identification hardly seems to suit the priests (numbered two, three, and four) described below. What is more, the time from Aaron, the fourth priest by this count, until that of the seventh priest, when Israel is sent into Babylonian exile (see below, 17:4), is surely longer than the lifetimes of the priests numbered five, six, and seven. Thus it might be preferable to see the mention of the second priest, the third priest, and so forth, as indicating the priest of that jubilee, its outstanding or most significant priest. Even so, however, the identity of most of these seven priests remains a mystery.
\n17:2. For corresponding to each jubilee Gk. kath\u2019 hekaston i\u014db\u0113laion, perhaps Heb. keneged kol yobel.
\nFor corresponding to each jubilee there will be [a] priesthood Some translate \u201cin each jubilee there will be a priesthood,\u201d but this assertion would be self-evident.
\nthe first one to be anointed to the priesthood will be great His identity is not specified, but it would seem that this refers to the priesthood inaugurated by Levi himself, since the words \u201cand he shall speak to God as to a father\u201d might refer to Levi\u2019s heartfelt prayer, which inaugurated his priesthood (see above on 2:4), although nowhere in the version of his prayer cited in the ALD does Levi actually address God as \u201cfather.\u201d
\nhis priesthood will be in accord with the LORD This is the Heb. shalem im, as in 1 Kings 8:61.
\n17:3. will be conceived in the sorrow of those who are beloved This apparently refers to the beginning of Israel\u2019s enslavement in Egypt and might correspond to the birth of Aaron. In Rabbinic prayers and liturgical poetry, Israel is often referred to simply as the \u201cbeloved ones\u201d (Heb. ahu-bim or yedidim) in the context of the exodus.
\n17:4\u20137 Phinehas may be the \u201cthird priest\u201d; he was \u201ctaken in sorrow\u201d in the sense that, according to Rabbinic tradition, he did not die but was taken by God (cf. Enoch in Gen. 5:23) for a time, then returned as the prophet Elijah, and then later ascended alive into heaven. That would bring us to the time of the divided monarchy, when Israel and Judah were separate kingdoms, a period when (with some exaggeration) \u201call of Israel will hate one another\u201d in the sense that the two kingdoms would often be at odds. Finally the Assyrians conquer Israel, and the \u201cfifth\u201d priesthood \u201cwill be overcome by darkness.\u201d The identity of the remaining priests is altogether unknown, but if the seventh priest lived at the time of the Babylonian exile (17:9), then perhaps Jeremiah himself is intended.
\n17:8\u20139 An allusion to the sin and corruption that led up to the Babylonian conquest of Jerusalem and the subsequent exile of its inhabitants.
\n17:10. And in the fifth week Presumably, of the next jubilee. By tradition, the exile lasted seventy years, that is, one jubilee plus three weeks of the next jubilee; adding two more weeks would then roughly correspond to the date given in Ezra 6:15 for the time when \u201cthey will restore\u201d (lit., \u201cmake anew\u201d) \u201cthe house of God.\u201d
\n17:11. priests who are idolators, adulterers In the author\u2019s view, the priesthood went astray almost from the start of the return from exile. This description does not seem to be supported by any biblical text.
\n18:1. And after their punishment has come at the hands of the LORD The reference is unclear. Perhaps the author has in mind the installation of Ptolemaic and\/or Seleucid rule.
\nthe priesthood will cease Gk. ekleipsei, which can mean \u201cfail,\u201d \u201ccome to an end.\u201d This seems somewhat amiss. If \u201cpunishment has [already] come at the hands of the LORD,\u201d why should the priesthood now cease\u2014especially if, in the next breath, the text will say that the LORD will raise up a new priest? Perhaps the consonantal Hebrew text said t-h-d-sh (\u201cwill be renewed\u201d), and the Greek translator mistook this for t-\u1e25-d-l \u201cwill cease,\u201d a difference of one letter.
\n18:2. Then the LORD will raise up a new priest Some have supposed that this whole chapter constitutes a long Christian interpolation (for the theme of the Christian high priest, see NT Heb. 4:14\u201310:31). But the dreary picture of the priesthood in the previous chapter would seem to demand some sort of resolution; it thus seems preferable to see here a pre-Christian prediction of a great priest-to-come. One theory is that this is not so much a prediction as a prediction-after-the-fact, that is, an admirer\u2019s breathless description of John (Yohanan) Hyrcanus, who served as high priest and ruler of Judea from 134\u2013104 BCE.
\nto whom all the words of the LORD will be revealed John was not only a highly successful ruler and conqueror, but someone whom history remembered as a prophet as well. Josephus says about him: \u201cHe was the only man to unite in his person three of the highest privileges: the supreme command of the nation, the high priesthood, and the gift of prophecy. For so closely was he in touch with the Deity that he was never ignorant of the future\u201d (J.W. 1:68). Perhaps it was John who commissioned the compilation of the ALD, a document closely related to T. Levi; some have even suggested that T. Levi 18 constitutes the original conclusion of the now-missing end of the ALD. Another theory is that this chapter is truly a prediction of the coming of the messiah\u2014a priestly messiah as implied in a number of texts from Qumran and elsewhere.
\nhe will execute true justice on the earth The Christian interpolator interpreted these verses as a prediction of the Christian messiah and was responsible for the insertions that appear below. (Note: after 18:2, ms. e introduces the long set of priestly instructions corresponding to ALD 6\u201310. These may or may not have once been part of T. Levi, but in any case their insertion here is clearly out of place.)
\n18:3. And his star will arise in heaven like a king\u2019s An allusion to the messianic verse par excellence, Num. 24:17, \u201cA star will rise from Jacob.\u201d
\nlighting up the light of knowledge as the sun [lights] the day; and he will be glorified in the world This description seems again strikingly reminiscent of the priestly figure described in 4Q541 frag. 9 col. 1 and cited above on 14:3.
\n18:5. in his lifetime Lit., \u201cin his days,\u201d a Hebraism.
\nand the clouds Positioned, as they are, in the lowest part of heaven.
\nand the knowledge of the LORD A restatement of Isa. 11:9.
\nthe angels of the presence These are the \u201cangels of the presence,\u201d who occupy the highest level of heaven in the book of Jubilees, and who praise God continuously. It seems that the phrase \u201cangels of the presence\u201d was originally the subject of this sentence, but \u201cpraise of the LORD\u201d was mistakenly added or transferred; perhaps the original said that these angels will \u201cpraise the LORD and be glad in him [the messianic priest].\u201d
\n18:6. will issue a sanctification The word hagiasma is the Gk. equivalent of Heb. kedushah, the ancient synagogue prayer based on the words \u201cHoly, holy, holy\u201d in Isa. 6:3. Here the angels utter these words \u201cupon [about] him,\u201d the messianic figure just described. Lest he be frightened, however, these words are spoken \u201cwith a fatherly voice, as from Abraham, Isaac\u2019s father.\u201d This mention of Abraham and Isaac has suggested a reference to Gen. 22 and, hence, according to some scholars, to the crucifixion. But such a connection ignores the context. Levi has just predicted that in the glorious temple above the clouds, the sanctification (kedushah) regularly uttered there by the angels of the Presence will someday be uttered for the great future leader\u2014in other words, \u201cYou, O great leader, are hereby declared from heaven to be holy, holy, holy!\u201d These words will be uttered \u201cwith a fatherly voice,\u201d that is, like a father\u2019s blessing, \u201cas from Abraham, Isaac\u2019s father,\u201d to his son, since Abraham was certainly someone who issued fatherly blessings. The blessings the author has in mind are not in the Pentateuch, however, but in Jubilees. He may be thinking specifically of Abraham\u2019s lengthy blessing of Isaac in Jub. 21.
\n18:7. and the spirit of understanding and holiness will rest upon him Here, \u201cspirit\u201d does not mean a lower angel, but \u201cspirit\u201d in the word\u2019s other sense, in imitation of Isa. 11:2
\n18:8. He will proclaim Lit., \u201cgive,\u201d Heb. natan, the verb regularly used with \u201cglory,\u201d \u201chonor,\u201d \u201cpraise,\u201d etc.
\nto His sons Israel (Deut. 14:1).
\n18:13. the LORD will rejoice in His children Deut. 14:1.
\nand take pleasure in His beloved ones See above on 17:3.
\n19:1. either light or darkness Reminiscent of Qumran dualism (as in the \u201csons of light\u201d vs. the \u201csons of darkness\u201d), but similar to the stark choice implied by such passages as Deut. 30:15\u201318 and Jer. 21:8.
\n19:2. And his sons answered Until now Levi has been speaking, so the sudden transition to the third person is jarring. Some mss.: \u201cAnd we answered our father, saying\u201d but this hardly improves the situation.
\nWe will walk with the LORD Lit., \u201cin front of,\u201d \u201cbefore,\u201d representing Heb. lifnei in such verses as Gen. 11:28; 17:1, etc., that is, \u201cin the presence of.\u201d
\n19:3. The LORD is witness, and His angels are witnesses This verse seems modeled on Gen. 31:47\u201350; \u201c\u201d: These last words are certainly a later insertion, since legally neither Levi nor his sons can be witnesses to an agreement made among themselves.
\n19:4. And so Levi ceased commanding his sons That is, ended this ethical will.<\/and><\/praise><\/of><\/teach><\/p>\n

The Testament of Judah<\/p>\n

1:3. I give thanks to the LORD\u201d Gen. 29:35.
\n1:4\u20135. obeyed my father in everything and I honored my mother and my mother\u2019s sister Judah\u2019s aunt Rachel was in some sense his mother\u2019s rival; it was thus a virtuous act that Judah honored both women.
\n1:6. my father blessed me Gk. \u0113uxato; this word usually means \u201cpray,\u201d but it was used to translate \u201cbless\u201d in Deut. 10:8 LXX and elsewhere, and here the reference is clearly to Jacob\u2019s blessing of Judah in Gen. 49:10.
\ncausing all things to prosper Lit., \u201cprospering in all things,\u201d but this seems to be a misunderstanding of Heb. matzliah, which, while it can mean \u201cprosper,\u201d generally means to cause others to prosper. (The LXX similarly mistranslates this word in Gen. 39:2: Joseph, a mere slave, could hardly be described as \u201csuccessful\u201d; the point is that all things prospered under his stewardship).
\n2:1. gave me favor Heb. natan li hen, usually with \u201cin the eyes of\u201d someone either stated or implied\u2014omitted here apparently because those people who were \u201cin the field and at home\u201d are implied. Since \u201cin the field\u201d in Heb. (ba-sadeh) does not necessarily designate a field, but anywhere beyond the town\u2019s houses, the phrase is rather like \u201cat home and away.\u201d
\n2:2\u20137 This depiction of Judah as a swift runner and hunter derives from Gen. 49:9: \u201cJudah is a lion\u2019s whelp: you rise up from wild game, my son! He crouches, lies down like a lion, [and] like a lioness no one dares rouse him.\u201d The author takes these as a further indication (beyond Judah\u2019s obedience to his father and honoring of his mother) of Judah\u2019s fitness to rule all of Israel.
\n2:3. and trained [her] That is, \u201cbroke\u201d her and made her fit to ride.
\n2:4 Among the deeds of derring-do, some mss. add after the words \u201cdown a precipice\u201d in this verse \u201cand any wild animal, if it came my way, I would tear apart as if it were a [little] dog.\u201d But this statement seems at the least out of place, since the text immediately returns to specific instances after this generalization\u2014it should have come at the end of this catalogue, not in the middle; since other mss. omit it entirely, I have as well.
\n2:6. and it was broken [limb from limb]. In the area of Gaza Some mss. parse this as a single clause, as if the leopard was thrown all the way from Hebron to Gaza, but that is an unlikely feat for a narrator to imagine, even one unfamiliar with the geography of the Land of Israel. Perhaps the text was influenced by Samson\u2019s feat in Judg. 16:3. Beginning this sentence \u201cIn the area of Gaza\u201d parallels the geographic note that began the previous sentence, \u201cIn Hebron.\u201d
\n3:1\u20137:11 The War Against the Amorites\/Canaanites. This long section incorporates an account of the war of Jacob\u2019s sons against the Amorite kings. There is no such war in the Bible, but it appears in a number of early sources, notably in Jub. 34:1\u20139 and in Midrash Vayyissa\u2019u, a text that was later incorporated into Yal. Shimoni 1:135 and elsewhere. The story of this war developed as an attempt to fill in the details of Jacob\u2019s strange promise to Joseph in Gen. 48:22, \u201cAnd now I assign to you one portion [Heb. shekhem] more than to your brothers, which I wrested from the Amorites with my sword and bow.\u201d Jacob\u2019s promise embodied a pun: shekhem meant both \u201ca portion\u201d and the city of that name, Shechem, which indeed became the central city allotted to Joseph\u2019s descendants. But why should Jacob say that he conquered Shechem, when Gen. 34 reports that Shechem was actually conquered by Simeon and Levi, an act of which Jacob heartily disapproved (Gen. 34:30)? Interpreters concluded that Shechem must have been the site of two battles: first it was conquered by Simeon and Levi, which allowed Jacob and his family to settle there; then the kings of the Amorites came to conquer it back but were defeated, this time with Jacob in the lead (hence, \u201cwith my sword and bow\u201d). While this section may have been written by the Testaments\u2019 original author, more likely it was imported from elsewhere into T. Jud., rather like the insertion in T. Jos. 10:1\u201316:6. There is effectively no transition between T. Jud. 2:7 and 3:1, and while chapter 2 is based, like so much of the Testaments, on Jacob\u2019s blessings in Gen. 49, no attempt is made to connect the account of this war with Jacob\u2019s words in that chapter (which the author of T. Jud. could easily have done). Moreover, no other testament mentions this war, although Gad, Reuben, Levi, and Dan are all said to have participated in it; this is another indication that it was a later insertion. At some point its inclusion was probably deemed necessary, since the existence of such a war was vouchsafed by the book of Jubilees, an authoritative historical source in Second Temple times. Since T. Jud. 2 already included an account of Judah\u2019s youthful feats of strength and daring, this independent account of his prowess in war was stuck in immediately afterward because of its similar theme.
\n3:1. when the kings of the Canaanites Jubilees refers to them as \u201cAmorites,\u201d as does Midr. Vay.; the word \u201cAmorites\u201d appears later in T. Jud. 7:2. Jubilees also says that there were seven kings (as it will appear later in T. Jud.). For reasons to be discussed below, the word \u201ctwo\u201d was probably added here by mistake.
\nfully armed against the [i.e., to seize our] flocks Would such a sheep raid be led by kings, \u201cfully armed\u201d at that, and \u201cwith a whole army with them\u201d? T. Jud. appears to have conflated two sources here. Jubilees says that Jacob sent his sons \u201cto the field of Shechem\u201d to graze their flocks; the Amorite kings then \u201cassembled against them to kill them \u2026 and to take their animals as booty\u201d (Jub. 34:1\u20132); later they are said to \u201chave carried off their flocks by force\u201d (Jub. 34:4). By contrast, Midr. Vay. presents the casus belli as Jacob\u2019s having settled in Shechem after its conquest, and the conflict itself is depicted as a series of pitched battles. Note that the Heb. \u2018am was translated into Greek as \u201cpeople\u201d (laos), whereas the original used \u2018am in the sense of army (1 Sam. 11:11, etc.).
\nI rushed alone against the king Asur Commentators have supposed that the king of the northern town of Hazor is intended here. But Hazor is later said to be the territory of another king (see below), and in any case that name is transcribed in Greek as As\u014dr, whereas our Greek text here reads either Asour or Sour; either of these might equally well be parsed as the king\u2019s own name; see below on 3:2.
\nand, hitting him on his leg-armor The account in Midr. Vay. is considerably more detailed, but concludes with Judah \u201ccutting off both his legs above the ankle.\u201d
\n3:2 In Midr. Vay. the king killed first by Judah is not the \u201cking Asur,\u201d as in T. Jud., but \u201cKing Yashub.\u201d It seems possible that T. Jud. has made two kings out of one. T. Jud.\u2019s \u201cking Asur\u201d in 3:1 may be a corruption of \u201cKing Yashub\u201d (in Gk. this would have been: [I]Asoub), who is also the otherwise unidentified \u201cking of Tappuah\u201d in 3:2. (The city is mentioned in Josh. 16:8.) The original Greek text of vv. 1\u20132 thus probably read as follows: \u201cI rushed alone against King Asur [= Yashub] and, hitting him on his leg-armor, seized him as he sat upon his horse and dragged him down and in that way killed him; [he was] the king of Tappuah. And I scattered all his troops.\u201d In the process of transmission, \u201cKing Asur\u201d came to be construed as \u201cking of Asur\u201d; the subsequent mention of the \u201cking of Tappuah\u201d suggested that Judah had killed two kings, hence the insertion of \u201ctwo\u201d in 2:1.
\n3:3. the king was a giant of a man, shooting arrows \u2026 from his horse In Midr. Vay., King Yashub of Tappuah similarly used to \u201cthrow spears with both hands from his horse \u2026 he was a giant (gibbor) in strength and skilled at shooting with both hands.\u201d
\nSnatching up a stone of 60 pounds In Midr. Vay., Judah \u201cpicked up a stone from the ground that weighed sixty sela and hurled it toward him [i.e., Yashub, king of Tappuah], although he was two parts of a ris away, which is 177 and a third cubits.\u201d
\n3:4. Best omitted; see above on 3:3.
\nI cut his shield in half and chopped off his feet This is the same act as that reported in 3:1, \u201chitting him on his leg-armor,\u201d another indication that this was originally the description of the killing of one man, Yashub the king of Tappuah.
\n3:5. eight of his companions Nine in Midr. Vay.
\n3:7. And our father Jacob killed Beelisah In Midr. Vay. Jacob kills \u201cZihuri, king of Shiloh,\u201d and with this the battle ends (thus reconciling Jacob\u2019s claim to have retaken Shechem \u201cwith my sword and bow\u201d in Gen. 48:22 with Judah\u2019s starring role here). \u201cBeelisah\u201d may be, as Charles suggested, a corruption of Heb. ba\u2019al shiloh, \u201cmaster of Shiloh.\u201d
\n3:9. Therefore, my father had no [further] fear as he had expressed in Gen. 34:30.
\n3:10. the Angel of strength would follow me Normally, the author would probably have referred to this divine emissary as the \u201cSpirit of strength\u201d; perhaps he opted for \u201cAngel\u201d in consideration of the angel mentioned elsewhere by Jacob, \u201cthe angel who has redeemed from all harm\u201d (Gen. 48:16).
\n4:1. The war moves southward With the preceding chapter the question surrounding Gen. 48:22 was answered and T. Jud. could have moved on. (Jubilees indeed mentions only one battle.) But Midr. Vay. (or, rather, its predecessor text) had its own agenda, apparently influenced by the desire to \u201cforeshadow\u201d John Hyrcanus\u2019s conquests by having Judah fight in some of the same places (above on 3:1\u20137:11).
\n4:2. And I went up against them on the wall Parallels Midr. Vay.
\n4:3. So it was that we conquered Hebron This seems to be the wrong name (Hebron has never been mentioned so far) for Ba\u2019al Hazor or another site; see above on 4:1.
\n5:1. [S]Areta In Midr. Vay.: \u201cOn the next day we went to Saretan, and there as well we had a great battle.\u201d
\n5:2. Gad and I approached from the east of the city In Midr. Vay., Judah alone ascends from \u201cthe east\u201d and Gad \u201cfrom the west.\u201d Then Simeon and Levi climb up from the north, and Reuben and Dan from the south; meanwhile Naphtali and Issachar set fire to the gates.
\n5:5. and those who had fled to the tower to find refuge These had not been mentioned before (although they are mentioned in Midr. Vay.); apparently T. Jud.\u2019s account has been shortened in transmission.
\nwe set the tower on fire and them with it The account in Midr. Vay. says that Judah \u201cclimbed to the top of the tower and killed two hundred men on the roof\u201d; there is no mention of fire, but see above on 5:2.
\n5:6. [some] men from Tappuah [tried to] seize our prisoners Greek says \u201cseized\u201d\u2014but then how could Judah and his brothers then immediately entrust these prisoners to the care of their sons?
\n6:1. And when I was at the waters of Kozeba No such remark exists in Midr. Vay., but the parallel version of the Chronicles of Jerahmeel asserts that, after killing the men of Tappuah, \u201cAfterward they rested at the waters of Yashub, to the north of Tappuah.\u201d It would seem that the waters of Yashub became the \u201cwaters of Kozeba\u201d under the influence of Gen. 38:5, a name which was elsewhere interpreted metaphorically by T. Jud.\u2019s author as evidence of Judah\u2019s alcoholism; see below on 12:3.
\nthe men of Yobel Perhaps \u201cArbel,\u201d mentioned elsewhere in Midr. Vay., but the identity of this site remains a mystery.
\n6:2. and we killed their allies from Shiloh Not mentioned so far in T. Jud.; in Midr. Vay., it is the \u201cmen of Shiloh,\u201d not the \u201cmen of Yobel\u201d in 6:1, who come out to attack Judah and his forces. The king of Shiloh is also mentioned in Jub. 34:4.
\n6:3. those from Machir Machir was a son of Manasseh (Gen. 50:23) as well as the name of his descendants\u2019 territory (Judg. 5:14); precisely because it is not infrequently mentioned, it may be a correction here for an unrecognized place-name here, \u201cbut we killed them before they got up to the upper part.\u201d
\n6:4. their women-folk rolled rocks Midr. Vay 2:57 says \u201cmen,\u201d but the confusion between nashim (women) and anashim (men) is clearly possible.
\n7:1. And the next day Midr. Vay. 2:59, \u201cthe fifth day\u201d
\nGa\u2019ash, the city of kings Some mss.: \u201cthe king of the city of Gaash,\u201d but Midr. Vay. 2:61 describes it as \u201cthe city of the kings of the Amorites.\u201d
\nwith a great force Midr. Vay 2:60, am rav, \u201ca great army.\u201d
\n7:2 This story has no parallel in Midr. Vay..
\n7:3. and we took everything of theirs as booty This seems to contradict the previous assertion that all their possessions were destroyed. Since Midr. Vay. 2:73 also reports that they took prisoners shebi, perhaps \u201cbooty\u201d here should be understood in that sense, or perhaps \u201cand their possessions\u201d was added by mistake.
\ntheir three walls not three different walls at three sides of the city, but \u201cthree walls, one wall inside the other\u201d (Midr. Vay. 2:63).
\n7:4. Timnah This is apparently the Timna[th] adjacent to Ramatayim, southwest of and Shiloh;
\n\u201cthe whole place of refuge of the fighting kings\u201d: the wording is somewhat garbled, but the intended meaning seems to be \u201cthe place of refuge for all those fighting with the kings.\u201d
\n7:6. And if my brother Dan Midr. Vay. 2:65\u201366 says \u201cand there Judah would have met his death were it not for his father Jacob, who drew his bow and killed left and right\u201d but in this case T. Jud. seems to have preserved an older reading.
\n7:8. but we did make them tributaries of ours Some mss: \u201cand we made a truce with them.\u201d
\nwe gave them back their spoils This hardly fits the context: would Jacob and his sons turn the Amorites into tributaries while at the same time returning what had legitimately been taken in war? Jubilees 34:7 says that Jacob \u201ccollected his flocks\u201d; similarly, Midr. Vay. 2:77 says \u201cthey returned all the prisoners to them [i.e., Jacob\u2019s sons].\u201d
\n7:9. And I [re] built Timnah Heb. banah (\u201cbuild\u201d) frequently has the meaning of \u201crebuild.\u201d In Midr. Vay. 2:77 the subjects are switched: \u201cand Jacob built Timna and Judah built Dahab\u2019el.\u201d The name of this second city varies greatly in mss. and remains a mystery.
\n7:11. And the Canaanites were afraid A resumption of the rest of Gen. 35:5, \u201c[And they journeyed on (vayyissa\u2019u)]; and the fear of God fell on the cities around them and they did not pursue Jacob\u2019s sons.\u201d
\n8:1 Judah\u2019s marriage to Bathshua. This was the original continuation of T. Jud. 2:7; the narrative here corresponds to Gen. 38:1\u20135.
\nmany flocks and herds Gk. kt\u0113n\u0113 includes both cattle and sheep, though it would seem from the subsequent mention of a \u201cchief shepherd\u201d that specifically sheep are intended here. T. Jud. mentions all this to introduce \u201cHirah the Adullamite\u201d (Gen. 38:1), but Hirah is not described in that verse as a shepherd. This description apparently arose from Gen. 38:12; while the Masoretic Text (MT) understood the consonantal text\u2019s r-\u2019-h-w as re\u2019ehu (\u201chis friend\u201d), the LXX and Jub. 41:14 understood the same letters as ro\u2019ehu (\u201chis shepherd\u201d).
\n8:2 In Gen. 38:2, Judah simply sees \u201cthe daughter of a Canaanite,\u201d but T. Jud. did not like the implication that she was just anyone, nor that Judah acted out of mere lust. It therefore adds that she was the daughter of \u201cthe king of Adullam.\u201d (The king\u2019s name \u201cBarsa\u201d is borrowed from Gen. 14:2, where it is the name of the king of Gomorrah.)
\nAnd he made a feast for us An important detail, since T. Jud. will later claim that Judah agreed to marry her because he was drunk at the time.
\nand having persuaded [me] The syntax of this sentence is problematic, but there is little reason to suspect (as Charles did) the reading parakalesas, \u201chaving urged, persuaded.\u201d Judah had to be persuaded, since he knew full well he was not to marry a Canaanite; Barsa, for his part, knew Judah was from a powerful family and might well have wanted his daughter allied to it.
\nhe gave me Certainly not for free, but in exchange for a good portion of the aforementioned flocks, another reason for Barsa\u2019s exertions.
\n8:3. but Shelah lived, and you are his children All of you? Judah\u2019s descendants included not only Shelah\u2019s children, but those of Perez and Zerah as well (Num. 26:20). Perhaps for that reason, some mss. omit these last words.
\n9:1 The War with Esau and his sons: Testament of Judah interrupts the story of Judah and Tamar in order to tell the story of this war. (The war with the Canaanite kings [above 3:1] and this war are presented one after the other in Midr. Vay.) It does so because it is trying to present things in chronological order according to the biblical data as well as those in Jubilees. The war of Jacob\u2019s sons with Esau does not appear anywhere in the Bible, but it is based on a number of biblical references, primarily\u2014but by no means exclusively\u2014on Gen. 27:40\u201341. Esau\u2019s vow in this last verse, \u201cAs soon as the mourning period of my father comes [that is, as soon as Isaac dies], I will kill my brother Jacob,\u201d was a clear statement of his murderous intentions. Since the later account of Isaac\u2019s death (Gen. 35:29) was followed immediately in the Torah by a list of Esau\u2019s wives and children, and then by the curious assertion that Esau \u201cwent to another land because of his brother Jacob\u201d (Gen. 36:6), interpreters concluded that Esau had indeed tried to carry out this threat as soon as Isaac died, but that Jacob and his sons had resisted the attack and caused Esau to assemble his wives and children and flee from their presence. The details of the war itself are recounted in Jub. 37:1\u201338:12, as well as in Midr. Vay. 3 and parallel (see introductory note on T. Jud. 3:1\u20137:11) the version in T. Jud. is considerably shorter than both these sources. As with the war against the Amorites, this tradition seems to be based on a projection of later events\u2014in particular, the Maccabean wars, or perhaps John Hyrcanus\u2019s conquest of Idumea (Edom), a land that was identified with Esau (Gen. 25:30). The assertion that eighteen years had passed since \u201cwe had come from Mesopotamia, from Laban[\u2019s house]\u201d is at odds with the chronology of Jub. 29:5, which dates Jacob\u2019s return from Mesopotamia [= Aram] to 2135 am, 32 years before the outbreak of this war, not 18. It seems likely, therefore, that this last phrase is a flawed attempt to situate the war in the larger scheme of Jacob\u2019s life\u2014an attempt made either by the original author of T. Jud. or, perhaps, a later editor.
\n9:2. in the fortieth year of my life Putting together Jub. 28:15 and 36:21, Judah would actually have been 38 or 39\u2014close enough to 40. But the Jubilees chronology will not work with the eighteen years of peace with Esau mentioned in T. Levi 9:1. For, if Levi was sixteen when the family returned to Canaan (see above on T. Levi 12:5), then Judah was necessarily younger than sixteen; adding Levi\u2019s sixteen years then to the \u201ceighteen years of peace,\u201d Levi would have been 34 when the war broke out\u2014and Judah still younger than that.
\n9:3. And he was felled by Jacob\u2019s bow Follows Jub. 38:2, Midr. Vay. 3:18.
\nhe was taken up [close to] dead to Mount Seir As it stands, the Greek text has Esau transported already dead to Mt. Seir, but that would be inconsistent with the next clause, \u201cand he died on the way above Eiramna.\u201d
\n9:4. a city with iron walls Quite a feat; apparently for that reason, some mss. read \u201ca strong city.\u201d But Midr. Vay. 3:26 refers to \u201can iron tower.\u201d
\n9:5. went up with my shield over my head Cf. Midr. Vay. 3:25\u201326.
\n9:7. tributaries Payers of annual tribute, as specified next.
\n9:8. And they gave us two hundred cors of wheat Their annual tribute. When Isaac blessed his son Esau, it was in these terms: \u201c \u201cBy your sword you shall live, and you shall serve your brother; but when you grow restive, you shall break his yoke from off your neck\u201d (Gen. 27:40). The verb translated as \u201cgrow restive\u201d (Heb. tarid) was apparently interpreted as \u201cgo down\u201d (tered); that is, Esau was condemned to serve his brother Jacob until Jacob\u2019s family should go down to Egypt, at which point Esau\u2019s descendants would break off the yoke of annual tribute. It is no accident that this same metaphor characterizes Jubilees\u2019 wording of the same events: \u201cEsau\u2019s sons \u2026 bowed their necks to become servants for Jacob\u2019s sons \u2026 [The latter] placed the yoke of servitude upon them\u201d (Jub. 38:10, 12).
\n10:1. After these things T. Jud. resumes the story of Judah and Tamar, left off in 8:3. In 8:3 the death of Er and Onan had already been mentioned, but now T. Jud. explains the circumstances.
\nEr married Tamar from Mesopotamia, the daughter of Aram Tamar\u2019s origins are not mentioned in the biblical account, but later sources (Jub. 41:1, L.A.B. 9:5) held that she was an Aramean\u2014as opposed to a Canaanite woman, such as Judah\u2019s wife.
\n10:2. he was displeased with Tamar This seems to be the intended meaning, although the Greek literally says he was \u201cin difficulty\u201d because of Tamar.
\nsince she was not from the land of Canaan She had the right pedigree but was a foreigner; he would have preferred a Canaanite woman.
\nan angel of the LORD killed him Even though Genesis says God killed him, here it is an angel that is dispatched. We do not know why Er displeased God (Gen. 38:7), but Jubilees suggests it was because Er \u201cdid not lie with her because his mother was a Canaanite woman and he wanted to marry someone from his mother\u2019s tribe\u201d (Jub. 41:2). For that reason, T. Jud. specifies that it was specifically \u201con the third night [after their marriage]\u201d.
\n10:3. He never had had relations with her Lit., \u201chad not known her\u201d
\nbecause of his unscrupulous mother Lit., \u201chis mother\u2019s unscrupulousness.\u201d
\nsince [s] he did not want to have any children from her More likely the original text read: \u201csince she did not want him to have any children from her,\u201d though such a reading is unattested; alternately, the present text might be understood as \u201csince she did not want to have any descendants from her,\u201d i.e., none of those half-Aramean grandchildren.
\n10:4. During the days of the wedding feast During the seven days that followed the actual wedding.
\nI gave her to Onan Some mss., \u201cOnan to her,\u201d but see below on 10:6. Arranging to give her to Onan immediately after Er\u2019s death this might seem cold-hearted, but the Torah (Deut. 25:5\u20136) requires that the brother of a male who dies childless marry the widow. Judah decided to have his son carry out this provision immediately.
\nBut he purposely Presumably Heb. bezadon, mistranslated as \u201cin wickedness\u201d (en pon\u0113ria); \u201ca [whole] year\u201d: not found in Genesis or Jubilees.
\n10:5. but he destroyed Gk. diephtheire. A more literal translation of Heb. sh-h-t (\u201cruin, destroy\u201d) than the wording of the LXX, which uses execheen (\u201cpour out\u201d); this thus suggests that our text is being translated directly from Hebrew.
\n10:6. And I wished to give her to Shelah Some mss.: \u201cI wished to give Shelah to her,\u201d but this notion of marriage seems inappropriate to the biblical world.
\nbut my wife Bathshua would not allow it All the blame is put on Judah\u2019s wife, although the biblical account clearly states that Judah\u2019s fear of Tamar might have had something to do with the sudden demise of his other two sons; it was he who delayed giving her to Shelah (Gen. 38:11).
\n11:1. but the [evil] impulse of youth blinded my heart See above on T. Reub. 4:9. Although \u201cthe evil impulse is greater than the good for thirteen years \u2026 after the age of thirteen the good impulse is born,\u201d it still takes a while for the latter to catch up.
\n11:3. she \u2026 went and acquired Heb. lakehah, \u201cbought,\u201d was apparently mistranslated into Gk. as \u201ctook.\u201d
\na wife for Shelah In the biblical narrative, Judah told Tamar to wait until Shelah was grown (Gen. 38:11)\u2014implying that at that point Shelah would take her in levirate marriage just as Onan had. But this promise was never carried out. Not wishing to make Judah out to be a liar, T. Jud. here suggests that the reason was that, while Judah was away, his evil wife Bathshua bought a wife for Shelah \u201cfrom the land of Canaan.\u201d
\n11:4. I cursed her This tradition is reported as well in Bereshit Rabbati.
\nin my anguish Gk. \u201cin the anguish of my soul,\u201d that is, Heb. betsarat nafshi.
\n12:1. After these things \u2026 after two years These two temporal references jangle; one or the other would have sufficed. Perhaps the latter was added in the light of Jub. 41:1 and 8: the former gives the year of Judah\u2019s acquiring Tamar for Er, the latter the year of Judah\u2019s sheep-shearing. The difference between the two dates is four years; since Onan was with Tamar for a whole year (10:4), and further time must have passed before he died, two more years might reasonably be expected to lead us to Jubilees\u2019 date for the sheep-shearing.
\nwhen Tamar was [still] a widow After Onan\u2019s death, she still had not remarried.
\nshe dressed up Apparently a reflection of Heb. vattit\u2019allaf (\u201cwrapped herself up\u201d) in Gen. 38:14, translated in the LXX as \u201cshe made herself beautiful\u201d (ekall\u014dpisato); here T. Jud. uses a different word (kosm\u0113theisa), probably indicating that it shares the same interpretation of hit\u2019allaf as the LXX (which is also found in Targum Onkelos, and Pesikta ad loc) but is not quoting from it.
\nthe city of Enaim Gen. 38:14 locates the incident \u201cat the entrance to Enaim, which is on the road to Timnah,\u201d and this may be identical to the \u201cEnaim\u201d in Josh. 15:34. But Jubilees locates the incident in Timnah (Jub. 41:8), perhaps understanding the \u201centrance to Enaim\u201d (petah eynayim) as \u201cin plain eyesight\u201d (see below on 14:5).
\n12:2. For it is a practice of the Amorites This is not what the biblical story says: there, Tamar dresses as a prostitute in order to trick her father-in-law into having relations with her. The same account appears in Jub. 41:9\u201310. But since, later on, Judah asks, \u201cWhere is the (cultic) prostitute [kede-shah]\u201d (Gen. 38:21), T. Jud. appears to have concluded that Tamar presented herself as something other than an ordinary prostitute. Numerous peoples have legends about other peoples engaging in the free exchange of married or unmarried sexual partners, but there seems to be little to substantiate the existence of such practices in ancient times. As for the Amorite practice reported here, while there is no obvious source, Charles has noted that its description is somewhat reminiscent of a passage in Herodotus. It is noteworthy that this description of Amorite practice is found as well in Bereshit Rabbati.
\n12:3. Since I had been drinking at the \u201cwaters of Kozeba\u201d An elaborate pun. Gen. 38:5 had said that Judah was \u201cat Kezib\u201d when Bathshua gave birth to Shelah. Kezib is probably to be identified with the town of Kozeba in 1 Chron. 4:22\u2014but why should the Torah have bothered to say where Judah was when his wife was giving birth? The author of T. Jud. had decided to make Judah\u2019s besetting sin in this testament to be drunkenness\u2014basing himself, here as elsewhere in the Testaments, on what Jacob had said to the son in question in his final words of blessing in Gen. 49. There Jacob had said of Judah: \u201cTethering his donkey to a vine and his mule to a stalk of grapes, he washes his clothes in wine and his robe in the vineyard\u2019s red. His eyes are bloodshot from wine [even if] his teeth are whiter than milk\u201d (Gen. 49:11\u201312). If, in the light of these verses, it appeared that Judah had a weakness for alcohol, then perhaps the Torah\u2019s reference to Judah being \u201cat Kezib\u201d was not a description of where he was, but a delicate allusion to his inebriated state. After all, the root k-z-b in Hebrew means \u201cfalsehood, deception\u201d; perhaps what the Torah meant was that Judah was in a state of alcoholic delusion when his son was being born. Building on this interpretation (which may or may not have originated with T. Jud.), the author used \u201cthe waters of Kozeba\u201d here as a kind of circumlocution for drunkenness. Just as Judah was \u201cat Kezib\u201d\u2014drunk as a skunk\u2014when his son was being born, so here he was with Tamar, drunk again. No wonder he did not recognize her! Note that this reference to the \u201cwaters of Kozeba\u201d was then misunderstood by a copyist as the name of a real spring; he stuck it in at 6:1 in place of the \u201cwaters of Yashub.\u201d
\nher beauty [also] deceived me Our author is particularly suspicious of women\u2019s beauty; see T. Reub. 4:1, 5:1, and on 5:6.
\n12:4. \u201cWhat will you give me?\u201d In Genesis, Judah promises to give her \u201ca kid from my flock,\u201d and the three personal items are given merely as a pledge until the kid can be brought. Here, T. Jud. skips the promised kid and goes straight to the pledged items: \u201cAnd I gave her my staff and belt and kingly crown.\u201d These items are different from those in the traditional Hebrew text of Gen. 38:18: \u201cyour seal and cord, and the staff that you are carrying.\u201d The \u201ccord\u201d (Heb. petil) would normally be a kind of chain (apparently valuable) worn around the neck, from which a man\u2019s seal would hang. Not everyone possessed a personal seal; this item was normally owned by a member of the upper class or by a high official who used it for the purpose of signing or authenticating documents. The staff was also something of value, probably an ornamented walking stick. In the LXX these items are translated as: \u201cyour [signet] ring, your little cord, and your staff.\u201d (A signet-ring served the same purpose as a seal, hence, apparently, the substitution.) In Jub. 41:11, Judah says, \u201cI have nothing with me except the ring on my finger, my neck chain, and my staff which is in my hand.\u201d In the light of all this, T. Jud.\u2019s version is only somewhat consistent with the biblical text and the interpretive tradition. Its \u201cstaff\u201d is in the biblical text, but \u201cbelt\u201d has somehow been substituted for the \u201ccord.\u201d As for the \u201ckingly crown,\u201d however, this is altogether new. The reason is that these items will be given a symbolic interpretation in 15:3. But as for Judah possessing a kingly crown, this is perhaps based on Jacob\u2019s prediction that Judah\u2019s will be the kingly tribe (Gen. 49:10).
\n12:5\u20138 This passage has been misarranged in transmission. I have therefore taken the unusual step of reordering the verses as follows: 12:5, 7, 9, 10, 6, and 8. The reasons will be clear below.
\n12:5. not knowing what she had done, I wished to kill her In Genesis, Tamar\u2019s pregnancy is eventually noticed, and Judah says \u201cTake her out and let her be burned [to death]\u201d (Gen. 38:24). This was puzzling to interpreters, since burning is prescribed in the Torah for the daughter of a priest who \u201cdefiles herself through adultery\u201d (Lev. 21:9). For that reason, some interpreters asserted that Tamar was in fact the daughter of Shem, a priest, thus explaining Judah\u2019s harsh sentence: see Tg. Ps.-J. on Gen. 38:6 (but not Targum Onkelos or Targum Neofiti), Gen. Rab. 85:10. However, the biblical text says nothing about Tamar being the daughter of a priest, and an unmarried, unengaged woman who is not the daughter of a priest would normally be married to the man who made her pregnant (unless he was refused by the family or was for some legal reason unsuitable); in any case, no punishment was prescribed for her (Deut. 22:28). But if so, then both Jubilees and T. Jud. have Judah demanding a more severe outcome than the Torah itself prescribes. T. Jud.\u2019s \u201cI wished to kill her\u201d\u2014as opposed to the Torah\u2019s \u201cTake her out and let her be burned\u201d\u2014may be designed to soften somewhat the biblical narrative, but it is still not in keeping with later law.
\nbut she sent me the pledged items secretly and [did not] put me to shame Gen. 38:25 says: \u201cAs she was being brought out [to be burned], she sent this message to her father-in-law, \u2018I am pregnant by the man to whom these [items] belong.\u2019 \u201d Rabbinic interpreters were struck by the fact that her message said she was pregnant \u201cby the man to whom these [items] belong\u201d and not simply \u201cby you, Judah\u2014you\u2019re the one who got me pregnant!\u201d They concluded that Tamar, even as she was about to be killed, was careful not to shame her father-in-law: \u201cIt is proper for one to cast oneself into a fiery furnace rather than to put someone else to shame in public. Whence do we know this? From the case of Tamar, since she was even set on fire, yet she did not put Judah to shame in public\u201d (B. Ber. 43b and parallels). T. Jud. sought to transmit this same midrash: it says that Tamar sent the pledged items secretly (en krupt\u014d). But the text became garbled in transmission: the original version must have continued \u201cand thus did not put me to shame.\u201d However, later Greek scribes did not understand the sense of the midrash and so omitted the negation \u201cdid not\u201d in all surviving mss. It is here that the order of the verses seems to have become confused; I have restored what seems to be the original order.
\n12:7. But [still,] I said, \u201cMaybe this is all a trick\u201d Judah still thinks he had met up with a real prostitute. He suspects that it was that woman who gave the pledged items to Tamar, who in the meantime had become pregnant from some unidentified stranger.
\n12:9. [After all,] those who were in the city said that there had been no prostitute at the gate. He means: If only I could find out the identity of the real prostitute, I could get to the bottom of this\u2014but there is no one in the city who can help me, because they all said there had been no prostitute there (meaning simply that there were no eyewitnesses to identify the real prostitute). The narrator of T. Jud. then explains the reason for the townspeople\u2019s silence: \u201c(This was because she [Tamar] had come from somewhere else and had sat for [only] a while at the gate.)\u201d
\n12:10. \u201cSo,\u201d I thought, \u201cno one else knows [and can testify] that she was the one I had gone in to\u201d Therefore, Judah has no alternative but to summon Tamar\u2014apparently to a court proceeding\u2014to clarify the matter.
\n12:6. And when I summoned her The fact that Judah had indeed summoned Tamar to a court proceeding was derived by interpreters from a subtle feature of the biblical text. First Tamar sent a message to Judah (Gen. 38:25); but then, in the same verse, she \u201csaid [to Judah], \u2018Examine these.\u2019 \u201d To an ancient midrashist, this implied two different settings: in the first, Tamar is at some distance from Judah and sends a message; in the second, she speaks directly to him and says (in the imperative): \u201cExamine these.\u201d On this basis, they concluded that Judah must have summoned her for further questioning since he was still not sure her evidence was conclusive (see above).
\nI also heard the secret words This is the additional evidence Judah needed; he concludes \u201cthat I could not kill her, for it was from the LORD.\u201d But what were the secret words? And if someone else had given Tamar the pledged items, could she not also have reported the secret words? They thus proved nothing. And what did \u201cfor it was from the LORD\u201d mean? This is another matter that is clarified by comparison of this passage with some Rabbinic texts. There, Judah\u2019s assertion in Gen. 38:26, \u201cShe is more right than I am\u201d (Heb. tzadekah mimmenni) was parsed as two independent sentences: \u201cShe is right\u201d (tzadekah) and \u201c[it is] from me\u201d (mimmenni). The latter was taken to refer to the pregnancy, in other words, \u201cShe is right; I am the father.\u201d But how could Judah be so sure? In those days, only God could say for sure who the father was. Therefore Gen. Rab. 85:12 reports: \u201cJudah acknowledged and said, \u2018She is right. From me.\u2019 But R. Jeremiah in the name of R. Samuel b. Isaac [said]: \u201cGod said to them, \u2018You [Judah] testify about what is out in the open, and I will testify about what is secret [i.e., beyond human sight]\u2019 \u201d (Oxford ms. 147)\u2014in other words, you should testify only about the things you are sure of (that you slept with Tamar), but not about things you can\u2019t know for sure (that you are the father). Another form of this midrash has R. Jeremiah say: \u201cA heavenly voice said to them, \u2018From Me [i.e., God] come the secret things.\u2019 \u201d Here the words \u201cfrom me\u201d in Gen. 38:26 are attributed not to Judah but to a heavenly voice that says: \u201cFrom Me will come the testimony about secret things [about which you mortals have no knowledge].\u201d The phrase \u201csecret things\u201d in Heb. can also mean \u201csecret words,\u201d and this confusion seems to lie at the heart of the garbled midrash in T. Jud. Not understanding what the \u201csecret words\u201d might refer to, someone added \u201cthat I had spoken in my drunkenness when I lay with her,\u201d since those were the only kind of \u201csecret words\u201d that seemed to make sense in context. But this completely obscured the original midrash. As for the surviving phrase \u201cit was from the LORD,\u201d this originally referred to the \u201csecret things.\u201d The original sentence thus read: \u201cAnd when I summoned her, I also heard the secret things [to which God testified]. And [after that,] I could not kill her, for it [i.e., the testimony about who the real father was] was from the LORD.\u201d Now the case was closed: Judah was indeed the father.
\n12:8. I did not approach her again A restatement of Gen. 38:26.
\nfor the rest of my life. According to Jub. 41:27, neither of Judah\u2019s sons had consummated the marriage, so technically Tamar was now his legitimate wife; still, he never again slept with her.
\n12:12. I have spent seventy-three years in Egypt For a total of 119 years; see 26:2.
\n13:2. And do not follow Lit., \u201cwalk after,\u201d i.e., Heb. lalekhet aharei, \u201cyour desires\u201d: a biblical commonplace, sometimes worded as \u201cafter your eyes [the seat of desire]\u201d; see M. Sot. 1:8.
\nnor the urgings of your [evil] impulse This is the \u201cevil impulse\u201d (Heb. yetzer ha-ra\u2019)\u201d; see below on T. Ash. 1:3. \u201cImpulse\u201d in this sense does not usually appear in the plural in the Testaments, so the plural here may well be a mistake.
\nin the arrogance of your heart Perhaps better: \u201cin the wickedness of your heart\u201d (zedon libbekhem), that is, intentionally.
\n13:3. no beautiful woman\u2019s face ever led me astray in [my] struggles Lit., \u201cin wars\u201d but this sounds wrong, and might be eliminated, save for the \u201ctook up battle stations\u201d later in this sentence; it seems some sort of comparison is intended. More likely, then, something has fallen out, such as \u201cin my wars\/struggles with evil Spirits\u201d\u2014specifically \u201cthe Spirit of envy,\u201d (Gk. z\u0113los, Heb. kin\u2019ah), which means not only jealousy but ardor, and indeed, passion (Cant. 8:6).
\nuntil I met up with A euphemism for \u201cslept with.\u201d
\n13:4. For I said to my [future] father-in-law [when he suggested I marry Bathshua]: \u201cLet me talk it over with my father\u201d since Judah knew he was about to do something wrong.
\nhe showed me a huge amount of gold that was in the name of his daughter That is, was slated to be given on his daughter\u2019s behalf. After all, he was a king and thus disposed of great wealth. Here T. Jud. introduces Judah\u2019s other besetting sin, love of money. This too is based on a biblical source, Judah\u2019s words to his brothers when they propose to kill Joseph: \u201cWhat will we gain if we kill our brother?\u201d (Gen. 37:26). This may have saved Joseph\u2019s life, but it still sounded damning: Heb. mah betza (lit. \u201cWhat is the profit\u201d) had the connotation of ill-gotten gains (see Exod. 18:21; Jud. 5:19; Jer. 6:13; Hab. 2:9; Prov. 28:16; etc.). Targum Onkelos thus translates Judah\u2019s question as \u201cWhat money do we stand to gain?\u201d From this tradition T. Jud. developed the portrait of a money-hungry Judah. Note that this portrait could not have come from someone who knew the Torah via the LXX, since there Judah\u2019s question is \u201cWhat use will it be if we kill our brother?\u201d Here, there is no implication that he is interested in material gain. By the same token, the motif of \u201cJudah the Drunkard\u201d cannot have come from a reader of the LXX either, since Gen. 49:12 LXX says nothing of bloodshot eyes or over-imbibing, but merely \u201cmaking the eyes more gracious than [or \u201cfrom\u201d] wine.\u201d
\n13:6. the wine caused my eyes to turn aside That is, caused me to turn aside after my eyes; see above on 13:2.
\n13:7. went against the LORD\u2019s commandment Technically, there was no such divine commandment in Judah\u2019s time, although Abraham (Gen. 24:3) and Rebekah (27:46) and Isaac (Gen. 28:1) had all made it clear that they did not approve of marrying a Canaanite woman.
\n14:1. leads the eyes astray above on 13:2. The section on wine\u2019s evils should be compared to Sir. 31:25\u201331.
\n14:2. these two [together] licentiousness and wine.
\n14:5. but in the sight of all I turned aside to Tamar Lit., \u201cin the eyes of all.\u201d This is a reflection of Gen. 38:14, where it says that Tamar sat down \u201cat the opening of Enaim,\u201d presumably, the city gate. But the same phrase (Heb. petah eynayim) was interpreted midrashically as \u201cthe opening of eyes,\u201d hence \u201call the eyes were staring at him [Judah],\u201d Gen. Rab. 85:7.
\nuncovered the covering of my sons\u2019 impurity A somewhat awkward rendering of Heb. gilah kenaf ervat banai, \u201cuncovered the covering of my sons\u2019 private parts,\u201d a compound of biblical phrases but basically restating Lev. 18:15. (Note that the plural \u201csons\u201d comes from a misreading of Heb. banai instead of beni, \u201cmy son.\u201d)
\n14:7. discretion Gk. sunesis, often a translation of Heb. sekhel, \u201cprudence.\u201d
\n14:8. the Spirit of deceit Beliar\/Satan himself.
\n15:1. A person who commits fornication This is Gk. porneia, Heb. zenut, translated elsewhere herein as \u201clicentiousness,\u201d but here clearly refers to some illicit sexual act. Having discussed how drunkenness leads to sexual sins, T. Jud. now turns to their effect.
\n15:3. For I gave up my staff, on which my [whole] tribe leans Lit., \u201cwhich is the support of my tribe.\u201d Note that Heb. matteh and shebet both have a double meaning, \u201cstaff\u201d and \u201ctribe.\u201d
\nand my belt, which is the power \u201cBelt\u201d (Heb. hagorah) is connected to the verb hagar (\u201cgird,\u201d i.e., one\u2019s loins or one\u2019s sword), an act often associated with going to war (Judg. 18:11, 16, 17; 1 Sam. 17:39; 25:13; 1 Kings 20:11) or more generally with strength (Prov. 31:17). Judah symbolically surrendered all these for an hour of pleasure.
\n15:4. I took no wine or meat A form of penance, to be sure, but the specification \u201cuntil old age\u201d seems to indicate a further purpose: since wine leads to licentiousness (14:1\u20133) and red meat similarly gives the body strength, abstaining from these helped Judah resist temptation in his youth.
\nnor did I see any joy Heb. \u201csee\u201d (ra\u2019ah) sometimes has the connotation of \u201ctake pleasure in\u201d: Gen. 49:15; Ps. 27:13; Eccles. 9:9, etc.
\n15:5. And the angel of God showed me When? Where? Apparently T. Jud. gives his misogyny a divine source to add authority to it. See above on T. Reub. 5:1.
\n15:6. the warrior\u2019s power Lit., \u201cthe strong man\u2019s power\u201d; this is probably Heb. gibbor, which means both.
\n16:2. If you drink wine at a party Lit., \u201cin joy,\u201d but this makes little sense; perhaps the Hebrew read beit simhah, \u201chouse of merrymaking\u201d (Eccles. 7:4).
\n16:3. Otherwise That is, while drinking at a party is acceptable if done modestly, in any other circumstance (i.e., otherwise) even this is unacceptable: \u201cdo not touch wine at all.\u201d
\n16:4. drunkenness reveals the secrets A common motif; cf. the Rabbinic maxim, \u201cWine in, secret out\u201d (B. Er. 68a).
\nI as well revealed the commandments of God Neither the biblical account nor T. Jud.\u2019s retelling gives evidence of this.
\nand God has said not to reveal anything to them Presumably, to the Canaanites\u2014but again, there is no obvious referent to this. Indeed, this is somewhat reminiscent of the Qumranite interdiction of revealing the correct interpretation of the Torah to anyone outside the group.
\nAnd wine too is a cause of battling and strife This seems to follow straight on the opening words, \u201cdrunkenness reveals the secrets\u201d perhaps indicating that the clause connecting these words to Judah\u2019s revealing secrets to Bathshua was an afterthought or a later addition.
\n17:2. because of these two things that my people It is difficult to know what this last word (Gk. genos) refers to: it can mean \u201cfamily,\u201d \u201cdescendants,\u201d etc.\u2014presumably, the tribe of Judah\u2014or \u201cnation,\u201d \u201cfolk\u201d and the like, hence, all of Israel. In context, the latter seems preferable.
\n17:3. the wisest of my sons Lit., \u201cthe wise among my sons,\u201d a Heb. superlative.
\nthey will cause the kingdom of Judah to be diminished Perhaps an allusion to the diminished Judea that existed during much of the period of Persian, Ptolemaic, and Seleucid domination.
\nwhich the LORD gave me The kingship that was given to Judah in Gen. 49:10. \u201cKingdom\u201d in the previous clause also means \u201ckingship,\u201d hence the connection of that clause to this one.
\nbecause of my obedience to my father As asserted in 1:4\u20136: a subtle hint to his own children to obey this command.
\n17:4. did I disobey my father Jacob\u2019s orders Lit., \u201cdid I grieve the word of Jacob,\u201d but \u201cdisobey\u201d seems to be the intended meaning. Perhaps an original \u2018abarti (\u201cI disobeyed\u201d) was turned into \u2019abalti (\u201cI grieved\u201d).
\n17:5. And Isaac, my father\u2019s father \u2026 and Jacob likewise Most mss. have \u201cAbraham, my father\u2019s father\u201d and \u201cIsaac likewise,\u201d but these are clearly mistaken. Abraham was not \u201cmy father\u2019s father,\u201d and in any case he died long before Judah was born. On the other hand, Isaac\u2019s blessing of Judah, while not in Genesis, is found in Jub. 31:18\u201320, and it specifically alludes to his kingship: \u201cBe a prince, you and your sons, for Jacob\u2019s sons \u2026 At the time when you sit on the glorious throne that is rightly yours, there will be great peace.\u201d Jacob\u2019s blessing of Judah as a future king is found in Gen. 49:10.
\n18:1. in the writings of the righteous Enoch See on T. Reub. 5:4.
\nin later times Lit., \u201cin the last days.\u201d Heb. aharit ha-yamim came later to be interpreted in the eschatological sense, but that does not seem to be the intention here. Judah is talking about the decline and fall of the Kingdom of Judah.
\n18:2. So guard yourselves This really does not follow from the previous verses; it seems to be a narrative resumption (Wiederaufnahme) of 17:1, suggesting (as Charles noted) that the intervening verses may be a later insertion.
\n18:5. And he withholds This is Heb. yimna\u2019 Gk. empodizei, misunderstood as \u201chinder.\u201d
\nand he does not remember the blessing This is a fascinating reference. In context, along with not offering the sacrifices he owes, this may refer to the blessing of God that follows a meal, mentioned in Jub. 2:21 and ultimately based on Deut. 8:10. However, the author might likewise be warning against neglecting the recital of the Shema. Though referring to the Shema as \u201cblessing\u201d may seem a bit strange, it was clearly so conceived at one time. The Psalms of Solomon thus allude to the Shema as \u201cblessing the name of the LORD\u201d (Pss. Sol. 6:4). Josephus similarly describes its recitation as a form of thanksgiving: \u201cTwice each day, at dawn and when it is time to go to sleep, let all acknowledge to God the gifts that He has bestowed on through their deliverance from the land of Egypt; the offering of thanks being by its nature praiseworthy\u201d (Ant. 4:212\u201313).
\nand he does not listen to the words of a prophet when he speaks This may simply be an evocation of Deut. 18:19, but the phrase \u201cwhen he speaks\u201d may indicate that the author accepts the validity of prophets in his own day; cf. T. Dan. 2:3. Lit., \u201cto a prophet when he speaks.\u201d
\n18:6. he walks about in daylight as if it were night Eccles. 2:14.
\n19:2. Because of money I lost my children Judah means that, because he had married Bathshua the Canaanite for money, his ended up with two sons who refused to have relations with Tamar and died in consequence; see above on 10:2.
\nand if not for the repentance of my flesh That is, my penitent self-denial \u201cand\u201d [i.e., namely] \u201cmy fasting\u201d: lit., \u201cthe humiliation of my soul,\u201d but this is Heb. innui nefesh, a common term for fasting. Judah\u2019s self-denial was mentioned above, 15:4. See also Jub. 41:27.
\nI would have died childless That is to say, Tamar would never have given birth to Perez and Zerah (Gen. 38:30). Still, Shelah was Judah\u2019s child, and he did indeed eventually marry and have children (Num. 26:20).
\n19:3. But the God of my fathers Some mss. add, \u201cthe compassionate and gracious, \u201con the basis of Exod 34:6.
\nI had acted in ignorance That is, I had sinned unintentionally, not recognizing that it was Tamar. Intentional vs. unintentional sin was an important distinction in Second Temple Judaism.
\n19:4. the Angel of deceit Satan or Beliar; see above on T. Reub. 3:2, T. Sim. 2:7. The rest of this (lit. \u201clike a man and like flesh\u201d) seems confused; I have conjecturally restored it according to the sense. The Greek-sounding end of this sentence may be a later addition.
\n20:1. the Spirit of goodness and the Spirit of deceit The latter may refer to Satan or Beliar, but it may also designate (as apparently here) one of his underlings.
\n20:2. And in-between is That is, these two \u201cSpirits\u201d occupy themselves with the human soul, causing it to perform \u201cacts of truth\u201d or the opposite: this is a rather different view from that of Testament of Asher, which sees the two \u201cimpulses\u201d as inherent in every human.
\n20:3. are recorded [lit. \u201cwritten\u201d] \u201con people\u2019s hearts\u201d [lit. \u201cbreast\u201d] That is, each person\u2019s good and bad deeds have taken place, but they remain imprinted on the person\u2019s heart, so that \u201cthe LORD knows every one of them,\u201d looking them up by peering inside.
\n20:4. since they have been written down by the LORD [Himself] Gk. \u201cbefore the LORD,\u201d but this is Heb. milifnei H,\u2019 the respectful formulation of divine agency; see e.g., 11Q5 \u201cDavid\u2019s Compositions,\u201d col. 27 line 11.
\n20:5. warns everyone Gk. \u201ctestifies everything,\u201d but this makes little sense. Heb. he\u2019id mean both \u201ctestify\u201d and \u201cwarn,\u201d and Gk. panta may easily be a mistake for pantas (alternately, Heb. ha-kol can likewise mean both \u201ceveryone\u201d and \u201ceverything\u201d). Understood this way, the sequence makes better sense: first the Spirit of truth warns the potential sinner; then, if he goes ahead and sins, it officially accuses him in court. This is the common jurisprudence of Second Temple Judaism, where some warning had to precede a conviction; at Qumran and elsewhere, this requirement was associated with Lev. 19:17.
\nThe sinner is burnt up An odd expression, perhaps miscopied or mistranslated. The sense, in any case, is clear: since his sins are written on his own breast, and he did them after having been properly warned, he cannot even \u201clift up his face to the Judge.\u201d
\n21:1\u20134. love Levi \u2026 lest you be completely destroyed This injunction reflects the pro-Hasmonean sentiment of the Testaments\u2019 original author. But then, at precisely this point, the second-stage writer, the one who opposed the \u201cobey Levi\u201d line of the first author, chose to insert his own views. In the words that follow, he seeks to persuade diplomatically, rather than condemn outright, the would-be priestly kings: Be content with the priesthood and don\u2019t try to claim kingship as well\u2014after all, being head of the spiritual realm is \u201chigher\u201d than being king, just as the heavens are higher than the earth.
\n21:2\u20134. and He put kingship beneath the priesthood Cf. ALD 4:7, \u201cThe kingdom of the priesthood is greater than the kingdom.\u201d Perhaps our second-stage author is modifying this famous assertion in order to turn it against the Hasmonean kingship.
\nunless through sin it falls away A clear allusion to the corruption of the Jerusalem priesthood; this verse embodies the complaint of the Testaments\u2019 second-stage Hebrew editor, who had reservations about the original author\u2019s order to obey the \u201cLevites\u201d (i.e., the Hasmonean priests) in all things.
\n21:5. For the angel of the LORD said to me These words are missing in many mss. but are obviously necessary in the words that follow, \u201cThe LORD has chosen him [Levi] over you [second-person singular] to be close to Him.\u201d The Levites are described as \u201cthose who are close to Me\u201d in Lev. 10:3; see also above on T. Levi 2:10.
\nto eat at His table That is, to share in the sacrifices offered to God; see above on T. Levi 8:16 and Jub. 31:16.
\nthe firstfruits Awarded to the priests; see Lev. 23:20 Num. 18:13 and Deut. 18:4; [and] \u201cthe choice things\u201d; see Num. 18:12; Deut. 12:11.
\n21:6\u20138. But you will be king in Jacob A gentle but firm assertion on the part of the author of 21:1\u20136a that the business of the Hasmoneans should be the priesthood, not kingship. These words were originally followed by 22:1\u20132, a brief description of future ills along with an assertion of Judah\u2019s eternal right to the kingship. But in-between someone inserted a fiercely negative description of kingship in general, starting with the words \u201cAnd you[r kingship] will be for them as the sea.\u201d This is hardly the work of the original pro-Hasmonean author; he had no quarrel with the way Judean kingship was governing\u2014it had not existed for centuries! Nor, certainly, was this passage the work of the second-stage Hebrew editor who followed him. Given the great, Homeric-style metaphor in vv. 6\u20138, it may be that at least this part was borrowed from some other text (though perhaps inspired by the great anti-monarchic speech of Samuel in 1 Sam. 8:11\u201318), onto which were tacked the mention of false prophets and sectarian divisions, both characteristic of late Second Temple times.
\n21:6 The wording here is somewhat confusing and apparently garbled in transmission.
\nAnd you [i.e., your kingship] will be for them like the sea All mss. simply read, \u201cyou will be for them like the sea.\u201d But this is an unlikely metaphor at best, and in any case does not fit with the continuation; see below.
\nFor just as, on the sea, righteous and unrighteous men [can be] caught up in a tempest that is, a kingdom can be cast in crisis, and good and evil men are suddenly caught up together.
\nsome are taken prisoner Having been shipwrecked, they are cast upon a foreign shore and there held for ransom.
\nwhile others grow rich Presumably, their captors. All this happens when the sea falls into stormy disorder instead of calm.
\n21:7. For kings, when they rule, are like sea-monsters Without the change proposed above on 21:6, this would be an inexplicable switch in metaphors; until now, the king was the sea, now he is suddenly one who swims in the sea. The only way to resolve the conflict is by understanding 21:6 as \u201cyour kingship will be like the sea,\u201d in which the sea-monster rules.
\nthey turn free sons and daughters into slaves, they plunder houses, lands, flocks, and money Again reminiscent of 1 Sam. 8:10\u201318.
\n21:9. And false prophets will come up like storms Out of nowhere, suddenly.
\n22:1. And the LORD will bring upon them divisiveness Gk. diaireseis, \u201cdivisions\u201d; this is apparently mahlokot, which can refer either to the division of the people into different groups (see below, T. Zeb. 9:2) or, possibly, the disputes that divide them, though the former seems more likely here. This is, of course, an apt description of Judea in late Second Temple times, a land divided by political and doctrinal disputes.
\nAnd my kingdom The Greek mss. read \u201cAnd my kingdom,\u201d and this may be correct, although in fact, Judah himself never was king of anything. Alternately, the original text may have had him tell his sons that their kingdom, to be created by Judah\u2019s descendant David, will eventually be brought to an end by successive waves of conquest: the Babylonians, Persians, Greeks, etc.
\n22:3. Yet He will preserve my kingly rule forever Despite these conquests, Judah will always be the kingly tribe (see Gen. 49:10 and cf. the interpretation thereof in Commentary on Genesis A, col. 5, \u201cA ruler from the tribe of Judah will n[ot] depart so long as Israel is sovereign.\u201d
\nfor the LORD swore to me with an oath The author may be thinking of Ps. 89:4\u20135, but those words were not apparently spoken to Judah; perhaps a further reference to Gen. 49:10 is intended, but there it was Jacob speaking to Judah and no oath is implied. Note also Jub. 31:18\u201320.
\n23:1 Here Judah continues his earlier forecast (18:1) of the evils that will befall Israel in later times.
\non account of the hedonism Or \u201clicentiousness,\u201d but this is not the term porneia that is used elsewhere; \u201cthe witchcraft, the acts of idol-worship\u201d: standard sins in the Torah. For the former, Lev. 19:31; 20:6; Deut. 18:10\u201311; the latter is the main theme of Deuteronomy.
\nof which you will be guilty The last phrase makes little sense in context; it may have been garbled in translation or miscopied.
\nand the demons that deceive These are the spirits\/emissaries of the prince of deceit, Satan.
\n23:2. the abominations of the Gentiles Presumably those of Hellenism: theaters and gymnasia and other noxious elements of Greek culture.
\n23:3 This long verse is an evocation of the punishments mentioned in Lev. 26 and Deut. 28 (known in Rabbinic Judaism as the two tokhahot, \u201cstern warnings\u201d) and thus makes clear that what Judah \u201cforesees\u201d here is the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians in 587\u201386 BCE.
\nfamine and plague Lev. 26:20, 25; Deut. 28:21, 51, 59;
\nthe avenging sword Heb. \u201csword\u201d often has the meaning of warfare, as here; but the allusion is specifically to Lev. 26:25.
\nsiege and flesh-tearing dogs of enemies \u201cSiege\u201d is mentioned in the two tokhahot (see Lev. 26:25, 30; Deut. 28:52), but this word seems at some point in the text\u2019s development to have brought to mind Jer. 15:3, which mentions \u201cthe sword to slay and the dogs to rip apart\u201d; the mss. therefore read here \u201cthe siege and dogs for the ripping apart of enemies\u201d; Charles suggested amending the text by omitting the dismembering dogs, which seem to interrupt the flow.
\ndestruction and the blighting of eyes Lev. 26:16.
\nslaughter of children and carrying off of wives Deut. 28:30, 32, 41.
\nseizure of [your] possessions, burning of the Temple of God, the desolation of the land Lev. 26:31\u201332, 43.
\nyour own enslavement to the nations Lev. 26:33; Deut. 28:64, 68.
\n23:4. And they will turn some of you to eunuchs This is not part of Lev. 26 or Deut. 28.
\nturn to the LORD with [your] whole heart Heb. belev shalem; \u201cthe LORD will look upon you\u201d: Lev. 26:42, 45.
\n24:1\u20136. And after these things Much has been written about this brief chapter. Some consider it entirely the work of the Christian interpolator\u2014or even of the \u201cChristian author,\u201d for those who hold that the Testaments were altogether a de novo Christian composition. But messianism\u2014the belief that a mashiah (Heb. \u201canointed [king,]\u201d \u201cmessiah\u201d) would arise in the future and restore Israel\u2019s fortunes\u2014was a Jewish hope long before Christianity came along. It thus seems more likely that this passage basically represents the work of a Jewish writer\u2014specifically, the second-stage writer who opposed Hasmonean kingship. He deeply believed that \u201ca stem will arise from your root\u201d (24:5), that is, a new king will arise from the tribe of Judah, and that in the meantime, the Hasmoneans should drop their kingly pretentions. Indeed, it seems likely that this passage, with its farrago of messianic allusions found in various biblical texts, is what\u2014more than any other passage in the Testaments\u2014first inspired the Christian interpolator to see in it a prophetic vision of the central theme of early Christianity.
\n24:1. a star will rise up for you from Jacob in peace Num. 24:17 was the messianic prediction par excellence in Second Temple times and is evoked here to signal the overall subject of this passage. Num. 24:17 actually reads \u201ca star will proceed\u201d in Heb, but the LXX reads \u201carise.\u201d The verb \u201carise\u201d had, in any case, messianic overtones elsewhere in Scripture, especially in the LXX of Deut. 18:15; Jer. 23:5\u20136 and 37:9 (Jer. 30:9 MT), Ezek. 34:23 and Mal. 3:20.
\nand a man will arise \u201cMan\u201d was simply the common interpretation of shebet (\u201cscepter\u201d) in both Gen. 49:10 and Num. 24:17. (From an early time, shebet had been confused with shofet [\u201cleader, judge\u201d] hence \u201ca ruler shall not be absent from Judah\u201d (LXX, Tg. Onk. on Gen. 49:10.)
\nfrom my seed That is, a descendant of Judah, not Levi.
\nlike the sun of righteousness An allusion to Mal. 3:20 (some Bibles, 4:2); this verse too was commonly interpreted by Jews as a prediction of the messiah\u2019s coming.
\nwalking with people in humility and righteousness This might sound like a Christian interpolation, but as Charles pointed out, the allusion is to Ps. 45:5, \u201cride on in the cause of truth and humility and righteousness.\u201d (Note that the Gk. praot\u0113s regularly corresponds to Heb. anavah in the LXX.) Since this psalm was also interpreted by Jews in a messianic sense (see below), a Jewish messian-ist, as much as a Christian, may have invoked it here.
\nand no sin will be found in him Part of Jewish messianism as well: Pss. Sol. 17:36, \u201cAnd he himself is free from sin, to rule a great people.\u201d In general, 17 and 18 present a good snapshot of Jewish messianic fervor at the end of the Second Temple period.
\n24:2. And the heavens will be opened to him The Christian interpolation here (\u201cto pour out the blessing of the Holy Father\u2019s spirit\u201d) was inspired by the continuation of this verse, \u201cand he will pour out the spirit of kindness on you,\u201d making the two together somewhat redundant. The latter is a quote from that same messianic psalm, 45:3, \u201cGrace [or \u201ckindness\u201d] is poured out in your speech.\u201d This was translated in the Psalms Targum as: \u201cYour beauty, O king messiah, is greater than that of men, the spirit of prophecy is given on your lips, since thus the LORD blessed you forever.\u201d
\n24:3. and you will be faithful sons to him Lit., \u201csons in truth,\u201d but Heb. emet also means \u201cfaithfulness,\u201d and that is the intended meaning here\u2014they will follow the king faithfully, that is, \u201cyou will follow his decrees\u201d: Gk. \u201cwalk in his commands,\u201d but prostagma is not the Greek word regularly used for a divine commandment, which is usually called an entol\u0113.
\n24:5. Then the scepter of My kingdom will shine forth This continues the imagery of Num. 24:17 (see above in 24:1). Here, the word \u201cscepter\u201d (Gk. sk\u0113ptron, which like Gk. rabdos, regularly translates Heb. shebet or matteh) is being understood as a personified instrument of discipline (cf. Isa. 10:5; Prov. 13:24; 22:8, etc.). This instrument, Judah is told, will be fashioned from the shoot that \u201cwill arise from your root,\u201d or your stock; it will be \u201ca rod of righteousness for the nations.\u201d The present form of the text seems somewhat unlikely: \u201cto judge and save\u201d are opposite actions, since judging usually results in punishment and often means in Hebrew simply \u201cto punish.\u201d (That is what a \u201crod of righteousness\u201d could be expected to do in any case.) The original Hebrew text thus may have read: \u201ca rod of righteousness to judge the nations.\u201d The original verse may have ended here: the present Greek text adds that the rod will also \u201csave all who call on the LORD.\u201d
\n25:1. Abraham and Isaac and Jacob will come back to life The resurrection of the dead had not always been a central Jewish tenet, but it became increasingly prominent in Second Temple times and eventually an item of Rabbinic doctrine: see Dan. 12:2, M. Sanh. 10:1.
\nLevi the first and I the second It is hard to know if this is the original author speaking\u2014he truly believes the Levites come first\u2014or the second-stage writer, who sought to appease the Hasmoneans by putting the spiritual realm above the political (see above on 21:1\u20134).
\nJoseph the third The order of the other brothers mentioned is somewhat surprising. Reuben is skipped over entirely, perhaps because of his sin with Bilhah and \u201cdisinheritance\u201d (1 Chron. 5:1). Having thus started with the two prominent sons of Leah, T. Jud. moves to the firstborn son of Rachel, Joseph. Perhaps he is mentioned prominently because of his importance in the Bible, not only in the long narrative from Gen. 37 to 50, but also because of the extended blessings Joseph gets from Jacob and Moses (Gen. 49:22\u201326; Deut. 33:13\u201317); Benjamin is fourth perhaps because he is Rachel\u2019s other son; then we return to Leah\u2019s sons with Simeon fifth and Issachar sixth; Leah\u2019s remaining son Zebulon is not mentioned, nor is any of the sons of Bilhah or Zilpah; it is thus difficult to know what was intended by the words \u201call in order.\u201d
\n25:2. And the LORD will bless Levi and the angel of the Presence [will bless] me This is the highest angel in heaven according to Jubilees; that Levi is blessed directly by God may reflect the second-stage author\u2019s stance in 21:1\u20134. The rest of this list is also somewhat confusing.
\nthe powers of glory Perhaps the \u201cthrone of glory\u201d was intended; \u201cthe tabernacle, Benjamin\u201d does not seem to fit here, since all the other items mentioned seem to be parts of the natural universe. Perhaps mashtit, \u201cfoundation [of the world],\u201d or some other term was originally found here.
\nThe moon Asher Some mss. read \u201cthe olive\u201d mentioned in the blessing of Asher (Deut. 33:24), but the moon, coming right after the stars and the sun, seems far more likely and is supported by other mss.
\n25:3. And the people of the LORD will be one That is, the tribes will be reunited as one people once again; \u201cand one tongue\u201d: the clear allusion is to Gen. 9:1: the people of Israel will be of one language and one accord (Tg. Ps.-J. to Gen. 9:1\u2014\u201cAnd the whole earth was of one language and speech and of one counsel\u201d; cf. Wis. 10:5, etc.).
\nSpirit of deceit of [i.e., sent by] Beliar Who is the prince or archangel of deceit (see on T. Reub. 2:1, 3:2).
\n25:4. And those that died in grief What good is the resurrection of the dead if it merely returns people to the earlier suffering? Therefore, T. Jud. specifies that everything will be different \u2026 for most people.
\n25:5. and the deer of Jacob will run with gladness This sudden switch from real humans to metaphorical animals is hard to explain, but no textual confusion seems responsible.
\nthe ungodly will mourn and sinners weep This is missing in some mss., but it seems essential to make some mention of the punishment of sinners if, in the future resurrection, some people will (as Dan. 12:2 says) \u201cawake to eternal life, [and] others to reproaches, to everlasting abhorrence.\u201d
\n26:1. there is hope for those who hold fast to His ways Wisdom (=Torah) is \u201ca tree of life to those who hold fast to it\u201d (Prov. 3:18), presumably eternal life.
\n26:3. cut open my innards In order to embalm me, \u201csince this is what the royals are wont to do,\u201d but Judah, a real king, hardly needs any of these vanities.
\nand take me up to Hebron with you See on T. Sim. 8:1\u20134.<\/against><\/s><\/with><\/as><\/of><\/of><\/of><\/two><\/p>\n

The Testament of Issachar<\/p>\n

1:1. to the words of one beloved of the LORD Other mss.: \u201cto the words, O you beloved ones of the LORD.\u201d
\n1:2. the fifth son of Jacob More precisely, the first son of Jacob and Leah.
\n1:2\u20135. in exchange for mandrakes A particular biblical incident, although it involved Issachar only indirectly, provided the author of T. Iss. with a homiletical opening for this testament. Genesis had briefly recounted the story of Rachel\u2019s \u201cpurchase\u201d of some mandrakes from her sister Leah (Gen. 30:14\u201318). In exchange for the mandrakes (which Leah acquired from her son Reuben), Rachel offered Leah the chance to sleep with Jacob that night; Leah surrendered the mandrakes and conceived that very night, and it was thus that Issachar is born. This story was profoundly disturbing to later interpreters, since it portrayed Leah and Rachel as negotiating with each other for their husband\u2019s sexual favors (and Rachel surrendering them in exchange to satisfy a crass food craving!). In his treatment of the story, the author of T. Iss. sought to \u201ccorrect\u201d this aspect of the biblical narrative. He began by changing a few minor details, saying that \u201cReuben had been bringing some mandrakes from the field when Rachel came across him and took them away [from him].\u201d (This explained how Rachel knew about the mandrakes\u2019 existence, something not clear from the biblical narrative.) The author also explained what mandrakes are\u2014\u201cfragrant apples that the land of Aram produces\u201d\u2014since the word for mandrakes (duda\u2019im) is rarely found in the Bible (apart from this story, only in Cant. 7:14). That they grow \u201con a high place below a watery ravine\u201d is surely a mistake: how can a \u201chigh place\u201d be below a ravine? The original text must have said something like \u201con a high place, with a watery ravine below\u201d or simply \u201cabove a watery ravine.\u201d
\n1:6. I won\u2019t give them to you\u2014let them be mine instead of children Rachel\u2019s assertion here sounds at first like a bitter comment, since at this point in her life she has no children of her own, apparently the result of infertility (Gen. 30:1\u20132), while Leah already has four. Later, however, we learn the true sense of her words (below, 2:1\u20132).
\n1:7\u201310. Jacob [rightfully] belongs to me\u2014I am the wife of his youth Leah here means: \u201cHe married me first\u2014if anyone has a claim on him, it\u2019s me!\u201d This biblical allusion to the events of Jacob\u2019s wedding night (Gen. 29:21\u201326), when their tricky father Laban substituted Leah for Rachel in the marriage bed, allows the author to give his own explanation of what really happened that evening. Rachel rightly points out that Jacob \u201cwas engaged to me first\u201d and ended up working for their father \u201cfor fourteen years\u201d in order to have her\u2014both matters pointing to the fact that Jacob clearly preferred Rachel.
\n1:11\u201312. But what can I do for you? Apparently represents Heb. umah e\u2019eseh lakh, i.e., \u201cI can\u2019t change the facts! What can I do now that these things have happened?\u201d (cf. Gen. 27:37). What happened on the night of the wedding was the result of deception, indeed: \u201cPeople\u2019s deception and trickiness are just too much!\u201d (Being a dutiful daughter, Rachel at first prefers to state this as a general principle, but she is clearly referring to her father, as she will say next.)
\n1:13. My father cheated me and stuck me somewhere else that night and did not let me see him Commentators had always wondered how the brides were switched, and why it was that Rachel said nothing. Here the author has Rachel explain precisely how it all came about.
\n1:14. Take one mandrake To this Leah has no response, so Rachel, a good soul, offers her one mandrake anyway.
\nI was called Issachar because of the hire [i.e., the rental price], in keeping with the biblical etymology of his name (Gen. 30:18).
\n2:1. she disdained sleeping with her husband and has preferred celibacy Celibacy was rarely glorified in Rabbinic Judaism, but it was celebrated in Hellenistic Jewish circles (see Contempl. Life, 68) as well as among the Essenes (Ant. 18:21, J.W. 2:120, etc.).
\n2:2. if my mother Leah had not sold Leah\u2019s willingness to swap the mandrakes for sexual intercourse is thus, in the view of this author, altogether reprehensible: had she not proposed the swap, she would have been rewarded with eight sons instead of six.
\nthe LORD visited her Ending Rachel\u2019s infertility, as recounted just after this incident (Gen. 30:22). The author sees this juxtaposition as indicating that Rachel was rewarded for disdaining sexual relations in the mandrakes episode.
\n2:3\u20134. For He saw that it was for the sake of [having] children The only reason Rachel had even argued with her sister over Jacob was because she wanted to become pregnant, \u201cand not because of lust.\u201d In the end, Rachel was given one son\u2014Joseph\u2014as a reward for her preferring the first mandrake to sleeping with Jacob, and a second son\u2014Benjamin\u2014as a result of her giving up Jacob on the next day as well.
\n2:5. she did not eat them Lest anyone think that Rachel did all this out of some mad craving for mandrakes.
\nin the house of the LORD \u2026 to the priest of the Most High who was there at the time Where exactly this \u201chouse of the LORD\u201d in Aram was, and who that priest might have been, the author leaves unexplained.
\n3:1. And so, when I grew up The author now turns to Issachar himself. The Torah had said precious little about Issachar; most of its information is to be found in the blessing that Jacob bestows on Issachar from his deathbed: \u201cIssachar is [like] a mighty donkey who settled down amidst the sheepfolds; finding the place pleasant and the land agreeable, he bent his shoulder to the burden and became a perpetual toiler\u201d (Gen. 49:14\u201315). The Hebrew text is not altogether clear, but the passage basically seems to portray Issachar as a strong-backed, simple-minded farm-worker. Thus, he is like a donkey\u2014sometimes used in plowing and other agricultural work\u2014that settled down amidst the sheepfolds, that is, in the middle of the sheep-farming country that surrounds the ancestral territory of the tribe of Issachar. Once there, he \u201cbent his shoulder\u201d to the burden of plowing and submitted to the heavy toil of agricultural life. The LXX translators, perhaps misunderstanding some of the ambiguities of the Hebrew text, rendered it as: \u201cIssachar desired the good; he established himself amidst the allotments; and seeing the resting place, that it was good, and the land, that it was rich\u2014he turned his shoulder to toil and became a farmer.\u201d Some scholars have claimed that Issachar\u2019s blunt assertion in 3:1, \u201cI became a farmer,\u201d indicates that the author of this sentence knew the Bible in Greek, since only in Greek is Issachar unequivocally so described. But this is unconvincing; the agricultural hints in the MT were certainly sufficient to generate the conclusion that Issachar became a farmer\u2014indeed, the LXX translation probably embodies an exegetical tradition that was already in existence, a tradition it shares with the Testaments. What is more, if the author knew the Bible in Greek, he certainly would have built his whole picture of Issachar on the assertion \u201cIssachar desired the good.\u201d But while T. Iss. describes its protagonist in glowing terms, his desiring the good is never mentioned as such. Instead, his virtue here is \u201csimplicity\u201d (haplot\u0113s), the equivalent of Heb. tom, which is frequently combined with other nouns in constructions characteristic of biblical Hebrew, such as \u201csimplicity of the eyes\u201d (tom-eynayim) in 3:4, in the sense of not desiring too much, not over-reaching; \u201csimplicity of heart\u201d (tom-lev; see Gen. 20:5, 6; 1 Kings 9:4; Ps. 78:72; 101:2, etc.) in 3:8, meaning \u201cstraightforward,\u201d \u201csincere,\u201d \u201cwithout ulterior motive.\u201d The author\u2019s praise of tom as the ultimate virtue is certainly a central theme in Hebrew wisdom writings.
\nI became a farmer for my fathers and my brothers That is, a tenant farmer (taken as the sense of mas obed in Gen. 49:15). The \u201cfathers\u201d are Jacob and Isaac.
\n3:2\u20134. I walked in simplicity Cf. Prov. 10:9, \u201cHe who walks in simplicity (holekh ba- tom) walks in security.\u201d
\nmy father blessed me As reported in Gen. 49:14\u201315. The next two verses continue with a list of Issachar\u2019s virtues: \u201cI did not meddle\u201d (cf. Prov. 26:17) \u201cand I was not jealous\u201d (the sin of Simeon) \u201cor begrudging of my fellow\u201d (perhaps an allusion to Deut. 15:9, or Lev. 19:13; Prov. 11:12). \u201cI did not slander anyone\u201d is perhaps a reflection of Lev. 19:16, \u201cYou shall not be a tale-bearer,\u201d or Prov. 11:13; \u201cnor did I disparage any man\u2019s [way of] life.\u201d For \u201csimplicity of the eyes\u201d see above on 3:1.
\n3:5. at the age of thirty Issachar\u2019s lack of interest in marriage earlier is altogether in keeping with the author\u2019s ideals; see above on 2:1\u20132.
\n3:6. no matter what I labored on That is, no matter what the season and, consequently, no matter what the particular farm work I was performing.
\nI would offer That is, give away.
\nall the choice fruit and all the first crops A strange combination. Gk. op\u014dra (\u201cchoice fruit,\u201d properly, the fruit harvested in late summer or early fall) is not the biblical term for the firstfruits of the harvest (which had to be donated to the Temple); they are usually referred to by the second term here, Gk. pr\u014dtogen\u0113ma (Heb. bikkurim). Apparently, and despite this order, the author means that Issachar not only fulfilled his religious obligations vis-\u00e0-vis the Temple, but also supported his father (in keeping with Exod. 20:12) before taking anything for himself. Note further that the law of firstfruits in Lev. 19:24 was the subject of some dispute in Second Temple times. According to one interpretation, reflected in Jub. 7:36, the firstfruits were indeed to be given to the priests in the fourth year, and the fruits were only available to the owner of the tree starting in the fifth year (cf. Jub. 7:2, Gen. Ap. 12:15), that is, \u201cthen to my father, and then to myself.\u201d
\n3:7\u20138. doubled the goods in my hand Perhaps not in the sense of \u201cin my possession,\u201d but rather Heb. beyadi, \u201cthrough me.\u201d
\nsimplicity of heart See above on 3:2.
\n4:1\u20135:3 A homily in praise of simplicity of heart (tom-lev) The theme of being satisfied with relatively little and eschewing earthly pleasures has justly been identified as a favorite of Hellenistic Jewish literature, but it is one that was elaborated earlier in ancient Near Eastern wisdom literature, including the biblical book of Proverbs; see, for example, Prov. 15:16, \u201cBetter is a little with the fear of the LORD than great treasure and trouble with it. Better is a dinner of vegetables where there is love than a fatted ox and hatred with it,\u201d as well as above on 3:2\u20133.
\n4:2\u20133. does not covet gold Prominent in biblical wisdom are the themes of not coveting gold or material possessions (cf. above and Eccles. 5:10). It seems altogether possible that the original text spoke only of not coveting the gold of one\u2019s neighbor (in keeping with Exod. 20:17), as attested in some mss.; this assertion was later subdivided into two things, not coveting [anyone\u2019s] gold and not \u201coverreaching one\u2019s neighbor\u201d; the latter phrase, nicely alliterative in Greek, has no biblical resonance. Wisdom literature also touches on the evils of gluttony (Eccles. 10:16\u201317); it seems that this theme, in keeping with T. Iss.\u2019s overriding interest in \u201csimplicity,\u201d has been modified slightly to that of hungering for \u201ccomplicated delicacies,\u201d since \u201ccomplicated\u201d is the opposite of simple (cf. Prov. 23:3), just as a yen for \u201cdifferent [sorts of] clothing\u201d is the opposite of being satisfied with ordinary attire.
\n4:3\u20134. does not anticipate living a long time The desire for a long life was, along with wealth and many descendants, one of the things that characterized the ambitious in biblical times (see, e.g., 1 Kings 3:10\u201311).
\nhe merely waits for the will of God Such waiting may be another biblical theme (Isa. 30:18).
\nand [so] the Spirits of deceit The minions who serve the chief angel of deceit, Beliar, are powerless against him.
\nFor he does not look at any display of a woman\u2019s beauty Not being misled by the beauty of women is also a common wisdom theme (Prov. 6:25; 31:30; Sir. 25:21).
\n4:5. Envy does not take over his disposition As described in T. Sim. 4:8.
\nnor does he think insatiably about making money See above on 4:2.
\n4:6. his eyes do not absorb the evils [that come] from the world\u2019s deceptiveness This deceptiveness or deceit comes, of course, from the angel of deceit (above on T. Sim. 2:7), Beliar, but the man of simplicity is immune.
\n5:1\u20132. So keep the Torah of God, my children The great theme of Deut. is also found in Wisdom Literature.
\nand acquire simplicity Abstract virtues are indeed \u201cacquired\u201d or \u201cpurchased\u201d (Heb. kanah); cf. Prov. 4:5, \u201cAcquire wisdom, acquire discernment.\u201d
\nwalking without guile See Ps. 84:12.
\nnot interfering with the commandments Gk. periergazomai means \u201cmeddle\u201d or \u201cinterfere,\u201d or sometimes, \u201coverdo it.\u201d In connections with the commandments, this could mean to interpret them in some way out of keeping with their usual sense (potentially a Pharisaic swipe at the Essenes or the Sadducees, or the reverse), or else to make a show of keeping every commandment over-meticulously.
\nwith the affairs of your neighbor Cf. Prov. 26:17.
\nBut love the LORD and your neighbor The two \u201cAnd you shall love\u201d (i.e., ve\u2019ahavta) commandments conclude this homily, the first \u201cto love the LORD your God\u201d (Deut. 6:5) and the second to \u201clove your neighbor like yourself\u201d (Lev. 19:18); these two central commandments, joined by their common first word, were apparently a frequent Jewish theme even before the rise of Christianity (see Mark 12:28\u201334; Luke 10:25\u201328).
\nshow mercy to the poor and the weak A biblical commonplace, also found in Wisdom Literature (Prov. 19:17).
\n5:3\u20134. Bend your backs down to farming A wisdom theme, Prov. 28:19\u201320; Eccles. 5:8.
\noffering gifts to the LORD That is, the tithes and other offerings due on the land\u2019s produce.
\nFor the LORD has blessed you with the firstfruits of the earth\u2019s produce As farmers, Issachar\u2019s descendants will fulfill the commandment of offering the firstfruits of the land each year (Deut. 26:1\u201312).
\njust as he blessed all the holy ones from Abel until now An odd assertion, since Abel was a shepherd, not a farmer, and his offering to God was \u201cfrom the firstlings (bekhorot) of his flock\u201d (Gen. 4:4); perhaps the author is connecting firstlings (bekhorot) with firstfruits (bikkurim). Although Abel is something of a biblical cipher, ancient commentators elevated him to \u201cAbel the Righteous,\u201d held in some sources to reside in heaven with the angels after his murder by Cain\u2014hence his inclusion among the \u201choly ones\u201d here.
\n5:5. no portion As Issachar will explain next, his descendants did not get the priesthood, which was given to Levi and his sons, nor kingship, granted to Judah and his descendants.
\n5:6. our father Jacob blessed me In Gen. 49:14\u201315.
\n5:7. And Levi and Judah were given [special] honor Here again is the revised theme of power-sharing between these two tribes (see \u201cIntroduction\u201d).
\nFor the LORD gave them an inheritance Both the priesthood and kingship were hereditary.
\n5:8. For to Gad it is given to destroy the gangs that raid Israel An assertion based on Gen. 49:19\u2014understood here to mean that the descendants of Issachar need not worry about defending the land, only farming it. (This tradition is also reflected Gen. 49:19 LXX, \u201cA raider gang will raid him, but he will raid back at their heels.\u201d)
\n6:1. in last times Like all great men and women close to death in the ancient world, Issachar can peer into the future. It is thus that he sees that his descendants \u201cwill abandon simplicity and cling to greed\u201d: this clause, and the sentence as a whole, is highly alliterative in Greek, perhaps suggesting that it was originally composed in that language.
\n6:2. be dispersed among the nations and will serve their enemies Such indeed was the fate of the tribe of Issachar, along with the other nine tribes conquered by the Assyrians in 722 BCE and exiled to foreign lands, never to return. Cf. Lev. 26:33; Deut. 28:64.
\n6:3. they will straightaway return to the LORD That is, repent\u2014but this was not to be.
\n6:4. to return them to their land Such a hope was still held in Second Temple times (Sir. 48:10).
\n7:1. sin An unusual formulation, though a similar phrase (apparently meaning \u201ca mortal sin\u201d) is found in 1 John 5:16 and elsewhere. But why would Issachar say he had committed no mortal sin, thus implying he had perhaps committed others, when he says quite the opposite throughout this testament? See 3:1\u20134, 4:1\u20136, 5:8. Moreover, in the list of sins that follows this assertion (7:2\u20136), very few of the things mentioned could be considered as punishable by death. Some mss. omit \u201cunto death,\u201d and that seems more likely to be the original version.
\n7:2. by lifting up my eyes That is, the first step in a liaison: Gen. 39:7. In Hebrew, the eyes are the seat of desire, and lifting them up leads to sin (Prov. 21:4).
\n7:3. I did not drink wine Drinking to excess is hardly a sin, but it is condemned in Prov. 21:17; 23:20, 31\u201335; 31:4\u20135.
\nI did not covet And so violate Exod. 20:14.
\n7:4. There was no deception in my heart The heart is the place where hatred is hidden, so that it cannot be seen from the outside (Prov. 12:20; 26:24\u20135).
\nno lie has passed through my lips In keeping with Lev. 19:11.
\n7:5. I did not remove any landmark The boundary-markers that delineate ancestral property: see Deut. 19:14; 27:17; Hosea 5:10; Prov. 22:28; 23:9\u201313. Interpreters came to understand this prohibition in the broadest sense: it prohibited upsetting any long-standing custom or law.
\n7:6. I loved the LORD with all my strength Reflects the second line of the Shema, Deut. 6:5. Significantly, the Greek here uses a term for \u201cstrength\u201d different from that of the LXX.
\njust as I loved every man as my children Some mss.: \u201cmore than my children\u201d; either formulation seems to reflect the commandment to \u201clove your neighbor as yourself\u201d (Lev. 19:18), as yourself being interpreted as \u201cas those who are closest to yourself,\u201d that is, your own family. Here again are the two commandments that begin, \u201cAnd you shall love\u201d; see above on 5:1\u20132.
\n7:7. you will make every wild animal subservient to you In keeping with Gen. 9:2; cf. Lev. 26:22.<\/unto><\/s><\/p>\n

The Testament of Zebulon<\/p>\n

1:1 Zebulon\u2019s testament is complex, covering a number of themes, but the one that emerges most clearly is that of mercy: unlike some of his brothers, Zebulon felt compassion for Joseph when he was cast in the pit.
\nwhich he ordered The word ordered (Gk. dietheto) complements the word for \u201ctestament\u201d or \u201clast will\u201d (diath\u0113k\u0113) at the beginning of this sentence, just as tzivvah in the putative Hebrew original would complement tzeva\u2019ah (\u201clast will\u201d); cf. above on T. Reub. 1:1. Indeed, some mss. here read \u201ca copy of the testament which he ordered.\u201d
\ntwo years after Joseph\u2019s death Contrast Jub. 28:23\u201324.
\n1:3. I am Zebulon, a good gift to my parents Restating Gen. 30:20, here following the wording of the LXX: \u201cAnd Leah said: God has given me a good gift. Now my husband will choose me, because I have given him six sons. And she called him Zebulon.\u201d In context, the \u201cgood gift\u201d is clearly the newborn baby, but the author chose here instead to apply this phrase to the story of Jacob\u2019s acquisition of a good part of his uncle Laban\u2019s flocks (Gen. 30:25\u201343), which follows shortly after the account of Zebulon\u2019s birth.
\nmy father increased greatly in both flocks and in cattle A reference to Gen. 30:31\u201343. The biblical story was an embarrassment to interpreters, since it seemed to imply that Jacob had cheated his uncle; they therefore sought to whitewash Jacob or, as perhaps here, to imply that this was in any case Jacob\u2019s \u201cshare\u201d\u2014wealth he had legitimately earned through his hard labor (cf. Gen. 31:38\u201342).
\n1:4\u20135. not aware of having ever sinned \u2026 having ever committed a transgression There is a difference between the two. To \u201csin\u201d (Gk. hamartan\u014d, Heb. hata\u2019) is usually a less severe offense, often unintentional; the word used in v. 5 for \u201ctransgression,\u201d paranomia, is rarely used in the LXX, but it implies a violation of law, one more severe than a simple \u201csin,\u201d either because of its very nature or perhaps because it is done intentionally.
\n1:5. except for the foolish mistake Zebulon now recounts what happened when Joseph was seized by his brothers. This was Zebulon\u2019s only real sin, and his part consisted not of actually seizing Joseph, but of not telling the truth to their father after the deed was done.
\n1:6\u20137. I wept much in private \u2026 revealed the secret Of what happened to Joseph.
\nI did warn them tearfully He may have been crying, but Zebulon did here perform the official act of warning that would make his brothers legally subject to the death penalty. (Note, however, that in the biblical account, it is Reuben who so warns them, not Zebulon.)
\n2:1. Simeon and Gad angrily went against Joseph The author concluded from Joseph\u2019s subsequent imprisonment of Simeon (Gen. 42:24) that Simeon must have been one of the principal instigators of his plight, spurred on, as Simeon confesses in his own testament, by his jealousy of Joseph. Gad, who confesses in his testament to the sin of hatred, is named here as a natural accomplice of Simeon. If Dan is included, it is because he, too, confesses elsewhere to wishing to see Joseph dead (T. Dan. 1:4).
\nFalling on his face In biblical Heb., an act usually expressing surprise or religious reverence; later (as in the Mishnaic Heb. use of this expression) it was, as here, an act of supplication.
\n2:2\u20133. Have mercy on me, my brothers Joseph\u2019s pleadings are not reported in Genesis at the time of his brother\u2019s seizing him, but they are alluded to later by the brothers: \u201cIn truth, we are guilty with regard to our brother, since we saw his distress when he pleaded with us but we did not listen\u201d (Gen. 42:21).
\npunish me with some punishment This repetitive formulation may reflect the Heb. \u201ccognate accusative\u201d or simply the Greek imitation of this construction, common in the LXX (e.g., Exod. 21:22).
\n2:4. As he said these words \u2026 my liver was poured out Innards (whether the liver, heart, or soul) being \u201cpoured out\u201d was a biblical idiom for experiencing emotional upheaval. (This, of course, went counter to the Greek understanding of the precise function of these inner organs; see on T. Reub. 3:4, T. Gad 5:9\u201311.) Once again, Zebulon reports on his compassionate behavior in the incident, but none of this is in Genesis.
\n2:7\u20139. But Reuben stood up As per Gen. 37:21\u201322. The subsequent narrative reports that the brothers threw Joseph into a pit, \u201cand the pit was empty, there was no water in it.\u201d This somewhat emphatic turn of phrase led the author to connect this observation with the report in Gen. 26:15\u201318 concerning the wells that had been dug by Abraham and renewed by his son Isaac (hence \u201cour fathers\u201d).
\nLet us throw him into one of these dry pits that our fathers dug and [in which] they did not find water The same pits are mentioned in 4Q225 Pseudo-Jubilees, col. 1:13. However, Genesis makes clear that those pits were in the area of Gerar and Beer-sheba, in the southland, whereas these events take place in Dothan, in the north. Apparently, our author had a shaky grasp of the local geography. Here, the emphatic addition \u201cthere was no water in it\u201d is interpreted as pointing to a happening unreported in Scripture: although Abraham and Isaac were righteous men, God had purposely arranged things so that these pits would go dry to save Joseph. (The same emphatic wording, \u201cand the pit was empty, there was no water in it,\u201d led Rabbinic exegetes in a different direction, namely: \u201cthere was no water in it, but snakes and scorpions there were!\u201d [Gen. Rab. 84:16].)
\n3:2. took the price [paid] for Joseph and bought sandals The prophet Amos had condemned Israel \u201cfor their selling of the righteous for silver, and the needy for a pair of sandals\u201d (Amos 2:6). In context, this is clearly a general pronouncement about the moral corruption in the country, and more specifically, the corruption of justice through bribery (\u201cthe righteous\u201d is probably intended here in its judicial sense of the innocent party in a legal case; cf. Amos 8:6). But since Joseph came to be thought of as \u201cJoseph the righteous,\u201d this verse was understood as a reference to selling of Joseph for money (\u201csilver\u201d) to the Ishmaelites. Why then the mention of \u201csandals\u201d in the same verse? The brothers must then have used the silver they received in order to buy sandals. The earliest attestation of this midrash is here, in T. Zeb. (For later attestations of this tradition, see Tg. Ps.-J. on Gen. 37:28; Pirke R. El. 38.) Here Simeon and Gad are singled out as the principal instigators, but all the brothers shared in the loot. Zebulon here says that he did not share in the money; neither did Reuben, who was not there at the time; nor likely Benjamin, since (unlike the others) he was Joseph\u2019s full brother\u2014and also very young. (It is not clear from T. Ben. that Benjamin was even present.)
\n3:3. instead, tread it Refers to the money, representing the worth of their brother Joseph.
\nunderfoot Thereby symbolizing the brothers\u2019 utter superiority over him. In particular, this gesture would embody the fact that the dream Joseph reported in Gen. 37:5\u201311, in which it appeared that Joseph would one day rule over his brothers (\u201cWill you really be a king over us or rule over us?\u201d Gen. 37:8), was henceforth null and void.
\n[now] let\u2019s see what will come of his dreams Gen. 37:20.
\n3:4 Having made the connection between the sale of Joseph and the sandals mentioned in Amos, the author seeks out a further connection: Deut. 25:5\u201310, the law of levirite marriage.
\nin the book of the law of Enoch An odd phrase, which contrasts with other references to Enoch\u2019s writings (see above on T. Sim. 5:4), which never mention any \u201claw\u201d of his. Some mss. read \u201cthe law [Torah] of Moses,\u201d and this is probably what the underlying text said, since the reference is, as noted, to a law in Deuteronomy. But at some point in the text\u2019s transmission, it was noted that such a reference was chronologically impossible, since Zebulon died long before the Torah was given, so the name \u201cEnoch\u201d was substituted for Moses. But whoever made the switch failed to eliminate the word \u201claw,\u201d leaving the impression that Enoch was the author of his own Torah.
\n3:5\u20136. the LORD pulled from their feet Joseph\u2019s sandal Deut. 25:5\u201310 states that if a man dies childless, his surviving brother is to marry his late brother\u2019s widow; should he refuse, she is to \u201ctake his sandal off of his foot and spit in his face \u2026 and his name will be known in Israel as \u2018the house of the one whose sandal was removed.\u2019 \u201d Here the author seeks to connect this law to the sale of Joseph. Since the Torah later reports that Joseph\u2019s brothers repeatedly bowed down to him, and since such bowing sometimes required the removal of the suppliants\u2019 shoes as a sign of reverence (cf. Exod. 3:5; Josh. 5:15), it was not unreasonable for the author to suggest that the brothers had to remove their sandals before such obeisance. This happened because, like the reluctant brother in Deut 25, Joseph\u2019s brothers had callously overlooked his plight.
\nand they bowed down to Joseph in the manner of [bowing down to] Pharaoh After all, Judah says to Joseph, \u201cas with Pharaoh, so with you\u201d Gen. 44:18).
\n3:7. they were also spat upon immediately as they fell down before him The spitting is also in keeping with the law of Deut. 25:5\u201310. When did this happen? Surely not when the brothers first went down to Egypt to buy grain, because at that time the Egyptians could not have already \u201cheard all the bad things that they had done to Joseph\u201d\u2014Joseph was still keeping his identity a secret from everyone. Perhaps, then, the author is referring to what happened after Jacob\u2019s death, when the brothers \u201cfell down before him and said \u2018We are your slaves\u2019 \u201d (Gen. 50:18). By then, of course, the Egyptians who were Joseph\u2019s colleagues and subalterns had certainly heard about what his brothers had done and so might have expressed their contempt for them in this fashion.
\nFor after that \u201cAfter that\u201d is surely wrong, since the intention is \u201cby that time.\u201d Perhaps this is a translation error, or perhaps a faulty insertion (it is missing in some mss.).
\n4:1\u20135. After they threw him into the pit, they sat down to eat The version given here, present in some mss., restates the first words of Gen. 37:25 (though the wording differs from the LXX). But while the other brothers ate, Zebulon, along with Judah, did not join them. Reuben likewise was not there, since Gen. 37:29 say that it was \u201cwhen Reuben returned to the pit\u201d that he discovered Joseph had been sold; evidently, he was not present at the time of the sale. According to T. Sim. 2:9, Reuben had left for Dothan and so was not present when Joseph was sold; an alternate explanation, found in Rabbinic midrash, held that Reuben did not sit down to eat with his brothers because he was abstaining in repentance for his sin with Bilhah (Gen. Rab. 84:19). This motif is not adopted here, but it is reflected in T. Reub. 1:9\u201310.
\n4:2. I did not taste food for two days and nights Similarly, in Bereshit Rabbati Zebulon is singled out as having pitied Joseph and opposed selling him.
\n4:6. Troglokolpites This may be a deformation of Gk. tr\u014dglodut\u0113s, \u201ccave-dweller,\u201d which became the name of an Ethiopian tribe, \u201cthe Troglodytes,\u201d in classical Greek sources and was later used in the Greek translation of 2 Chron. 12:3. In T. Jos. 11:2, Joseph reports that he was taken to the land of the \u201cIndokolpites,\u201d which may represent a garbled version of the same name.
\n4:8\u20139. Do not cry or lament In this retelling, it is Dan who comes up with the idea (Gen. 37:31\u201333) of taking Joseph\u2019s coat and dipping it blood to suggest to their father that Joseph had been slain by a wild animal.
\nRecognize [this] A quote from Gen. 37:32.
\n4:11. But Simeon \u2026 was angry that he [Joseph] was [still] alive As he says in T. Sim. 2:11.
\n4:12. we will say that you alone did this evil in Israel Apparently, the brothers are already too ashamed to specify what had been done. To perform some evil or abomination \u201cin Israel\u201d is a biblical commonplace, especially in Deuteronomy (Deut. 13:15; 17:4; 22:21); it is not entirely appropriate since \u201cIsrael\u201d at this point in history consists of one nuclear family (though similarly in Gen. 34:7).
\n5:1. to act mercifully toward your neighbor and to have compassion for all A reflection of the twin divine attributes of rahum ve-hannun (Exod. 34:6 and frequently thereafter). This ought to be compared to the Rabbinic understanding of Lev. 19:1 as imitatio Dei (see above on T. Sim. 4:4).
\n5:2. while all my brothers became sick Some brothers, like Reuben, were stricken as a result of sin, but the \u201call\u201d here is a difficulty. Apparently, Zebulon is referring to those of his brothers\u2019 descendants who died in a plague (see below).
\nthe LORD knows the thoughts of each A quotation of Ps. 94:11, but not in the LXX. The word mahshavot means \u201cplans\u201d in standard bib. Heb., but came later to mean \u201cthoughts,\u201d in which sense it is used here.
\n5:3. So have mercy in your innards The traditional seat of mercy in Heb.: Jer. 31:20.
\njust as someone does to his neighbor Here \u201cjust as\u201d means \u201cin the same manner\u201d (Lev. 24:19\u201320); this was understood by some as a principle of divine justice. Jubilees thus reports that, since Cain killed Abel with a stone, God arranged for Cain to be killed with stones (Jub. 4:31\u201332). This parallels the saying attributed to Rabban Gamliel in T. BB 9:30, Sifre Deut. 96, B. Shab. 151b, etc.
\n5:4. For my brothers\u2019 sons became sick and died because of Joseph At first glance, this assertion is difficult to understand. But it may be that in the midrashic source underlying this verse, Zebulon was speaking of the future: he saw prophetically that his brothers\u2019 sons will die. If so, then this remark would be based on a comparison of the census figures before and after the plague at Ba\u2019al Peor (i.e., Num. 1 vs. Num. 26): Comparing the figures, it is clear that the sons of Reuben, Simeon, Gad, and Naphtali suffered losses in population; according to Zebulon, members of these tribes were stricken because of their founders\u2019 attitude toward Joseph, \u201cthey became sick and died,\u201d while Zebulon\u2019s sons actually increased. His descendants, however, were not the only ones to increase; the others belonged to the tribes of Judah, Issachar, Joseph (Manasseh + Ephraim), Benjamin, Asher, and Dan. In the Testaments, all of these except Dan did nothing against Joseph\u2014but Dan is a troubling exception; by the same token, Reuben and Naphtali hardly belong in any list of those who mistreated Joseph, at least not by the account given in the Testaments. It is not impossible, if this remark comes from an earlier midrashic source, that Dan, Reuben, and Naphtali were not characterized there as they are in the Testaments. It is also possible that \u201cmy brothers\u2019 sons\u201d refers only to some of their descendants.
\nbecause they had no mercy in their innards, while my sons survived unharmed, as you know This formulation seems odd. After all, Zebulon is addressing his sons: why does he not say, \u201cwhile you survived unharmed? And why should he be telling his sons something they already know? It would seem, therefore, in keeping with the foregoing remarks, that the original version of this remark likewise spoke of the future: \u201cwhile my sons [= descendants] will survive unharmed.\u201d The \u201cas you know\u201d may have been added when the original tenses were confused (to account for the incongruity created by that confusion).
\n5:5. And when I was in the land of Canaan Because at the time of his death Zebulon was living with his brothers in Egypt.
\nI used to go to the coastline hunting for fish Jacob had blessed Zebulon in these terms: \u201cZebulon will dwell on the seacoast\u2014he will be a coastline for ships, and his outskirts will stretch to Sidon\u201d (Gen. 49:13). On that basis, the author here depicts Zebulon as a fisherman. The phrase used for \u201chunting\u201d here is the same as in Gen. 27:3, 5. In Greek, as in English, fish are not \u201chunted\u201d but \u201ccaught\u201d or \u201cnetted\u201d; in Heb., however, the expression would be less incongruous, since a fisherman\u2019s net (metzudah) is derived from the same root as \u201chunt\u201d (tzud).
\ndrowned in the sea Lit., \u201csuffocated\u201d; I find no explanation for this expression, as unusual in Hebrew as in Greek.
\n6:1\u20133. the first to make a boat to sail Like other cultural heroes, Zebulon is credited (again, on the basis of Gen. 49:13) with the invention of something later well-known; cf. Abraham\u2019s invention of the plow in Jub. 11:23.
\nput down some wood at the back A somewhat confused detail; this seems to be describing the rudder.
\nI used to catch fish for my father\u2019s house Another Hebraism: beit av means \u201cfamily.\u201d
\n6:4\u20138 The ever-merciful Zebulon used to share his catch with every \u201cstranger\u201d\u2014apparently, the biblical ger, the \u201cstranger at your gates\u201d or resident alien (Deut. 14:21; 24:19\u201321, etc.). For this God rewarded him amply, and Zebulon was able to provide food for his family and strangers alike.
\nreceiving them [in my house] Heb. makhnis otam: hospitality (hakhnasat orehim) is a fundamental Rabbinic virtue, traditionally associated with Abraham on the basis of Gen. 18:1\u20138.
\nand sympathizing with them \u2026 he who shares with his fellow \u2026 many times more Any good deed is disproportionately rewarded by God: M. Sot. 1:9.
\nall my father\u2019s house Family (above on 6:3).
\n7:1. someone who was in difficult straits\u2014naked, in wintertime That is, with insufficient clothing.
\nI stole a piece of clothing from my house \u201cStole\u201d seems most unlikely here, for three reasons: 1) even in such circumstances, it seems improbable that the Testaments would condone, indeed encourage, theft; 2) because, in the absence of further specifications, Zebulon could not \u201csteal\u201d from his own household; and 3) because, in the lesson to be drawn from this incident, Zebulon does not say that it is licit to steal to help someone, but on the contrary that \u201cif you have nothing to give to a needy person, [at least] show sympathy for him with deep feelings of mercy.\u201d But don\u2019t steal!
\ngave it secretly to the man in difficult straits \u201cSecretly\u201d was probably first intended to suggest that Zebulon made no public show of the gift, since that would make his gesture less selfless and only embarrass the recipient; for a similar case, see above on T. Jud. 12:5. But this word \u201csecretly\u201d may have suggested to a later editor or copyist of the text that Zebulon had something to hide, namely, the fact that he \u201cstole\u201d the garment from his house.
\n7:2. unwaveringly Cf. 4Q416 Sapiential Work A, frag. 2, col. 3:20 urges people to give \u201cwithout apportioning\u201d (beli hok); perhaps the same expression inspired the Gk. adiakrit\u014ds (lit., \u201cwithout distinction\u201d) here.
\nwith a good heart That is, ungrudgingly.
\n7:4. my hand did not find anything For this biblical idiom, see Lev. 12:8; 25:28; 1 Sam. 10:7.
\n8:2\u20136. in the last days God will send His compassion on earth This sounds like it might be the beginning of another Christian insertion, but not necessarily: eschatological speculation about the \u201clast days\u201d was hardly an exclusively Christian occupation.
\nand wherever He finds feelings of mercy, there He will dwell This sounds more Hebrew than Greek: indeed, if the original said bekhol [ha-]makom (\u201cin every place\u201d) in place of Gk. hopou (\u201cwherever\u201d), that would explain the otherwise difficult Gk. en aut\u014d (\u201cin it,\u201d translated above as \u201cthere,\u201d i.e., in that same place) for the same construction, cf. Exod. 20:24.
\n8:3. as much as a man shows compassion for his fellow, so much will the LORD [show] for him This is altogether in keeping with the great principle of \u201cmeasure for measure\u201d (on which, in Rabbinic sources, see again M. Sot. 1:7\u20139). Having compassion here is presented as the opposite of holding a grudge.
\n8:5\u20136. contemplating him That is, contemplating Joseph\u2019s example demonstrates that holding a grudge is wrong.
\nlove one another This juxtaposition of not holding a grudge and loving one another probably derives from their juxtaposition in Lev. 19:18, \u201cYou shall not seek revenge or hold a grudge, and you shall love your neighbor like yourself.\u201d
\nFor this severs unity and divides the whole family and troubles the soul and destroys possessions What starts off as a family spat (in the common case, a property dispute) will not only reach the point of \u201ctroubling the soul,\u201d deeply disturbing the participants, but will eventually destroy the very thing they are fighting over. Some mss. end this verse: \u201cFor someone who holds a grudge has no feelings of mercy,\u201d but this seems repetitive and anticlimactic.
\n9:4. Do not be divided into two heads This may have been intended as a continuation of the same image of a stream, since the word \u201cheads\u201d (Heb. rashim), was sometimes used to mean \u201ctributaries\u201d (see Gen. 2:10), streams branching off a main source of water. In any case, the message is: do not have two different \u201cheads\u201d\u2014leaders\u2014ruling over different factions of Jacob\u2019s descendants.
\nfor everything the LORD has made has only one head These lines would seem to belong to the original Hasmonean author (see \u201cIntroduction\u201d), who wished one Hasmonean \u201chead\u201d to exercise the functions of both high priest and king.
\n9:5. know from the writing of my fathers Presumably a substitute for the \u201cwriting of Enoch\u201d mentioned elsewhere; see above on T. Sim. 3:4. What Zebulon \u201cknows\u201d from this source is in fact what happened \u201cin later times\u201d: i.e., the time of the Divided Monarchy, which is \u201cin later times\u201d from Zebulon\u2019s perspective, even if it was in the distant past from the standpoint of the Testaments\u2019 author.
\nyou will \u2026 follow two kings David\u2019s united monarchy split into two during his grandson\u2019s reign, but here Zebulon must be speaking of all Jacob\u2019s sons, since the tribe of Zebulon was, according to the biblical account, altogether ruled by a single king, that of the Northern Kingdom.
\nperform every abomination and worship every idol This is presumably referring to Jeroboam\u2019s establishment of the golden bulls at Bethel and Dan (1 Kings 12:25\u201333).
\n9:6. you will be ill-treated among the Gentiles \u2026 every illness and distress The sinfulness of the Northern Kingdom will lead to their being conquered by Assyria and exiled to parts unknown: Lev. 26:16, 39; Deut. 28:22, 27, 61.
\nand pain of the soul Some mss. omit this, but it is Deut. 28:65.
\n9:7. He is merciful and compassionate Exod. 34:6; see above on 5:1\u20134.
\nnot keeping a record of people\u2019s evil [deeds] The same phrase as used above in 8:5, but here applied to God. It was apparently part of the traditional understanding of the continuation of Exod. 34:6\u20137, where \u201ckeeping favor for thousands\u201d (generally understood as \u201cthousands of generations\u201d) seemed to conflict with \u201cvisiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children \u2026 to the fourth generation.\u201d The former was understood to apply to the righteous; their sins were not held to strict accounting.
\nsince they are flesh Gen. 6:3; Ps. 78:39.
\nand the Spirits of deceit lead them astray See above, T. Iss. 3:2.
\n10:1\u20132. do not grieve that I am dying In common with other Second Temple period sources, Zebulon\u2019s closing words reflect a profound belief in the final resurrection of the righteous.
\nI will rise again in your midst Refers to his later resurrection.
\nas a king amidst his sons This is somewhat puzzling: should it not be \u201cas a king amidst his subjects\u201d? Or\u2014perhaps more likely\u2014the original text was an affirmation that when the dead are resurrected, they and their loved ones will return to what they were, hence, \u201cas a father amidst his sons.\u201d
\nthe LORD\u2019s Torah and the commandments of Zebulon A recognition that Zebulon\u2019s injunction to act mercifully with all men and share every earthly good goes beyond the demands of the Torah itself.
\n10:6. slept a goodly sleep A somewhat odd expression, even in Greek, but cf. T. Job 53:7.<\/p>\n

The Testament of Dan<\/p>\n

1:2. the words of your father\u2019s mouth A clear Hebraism (imrei pi, different from \u201cmy words\u201d (deva-rai) in the previous clause.
\n1:3. lying and anger are evil Like Simeon, Dan was guilty of envying Joseph, and this led him into \u201clying and anger,\u201d his twin besetting sins (below on 2:1).
\n1:4\u20135. rejoiced in my heart Was secretly glad; \u201cbecause father loved him more\u201d (Gen. 37:3).
\n1:6. the Spirit of envy and arrogance As elsewhere, these Spirits are angelic emissaries that take over a person\u2019s mind.
\nsaid to me Spoke to me as one person speaks to another.
\n1:8. the Spirit of anger Envy and anger are close associates in the Bible: see Prov. 27:4.
\nto strike Joseph down, the way a tiger strikes down a kid An obvious error in the Greek text, noticed as early as Charles; the Gk. reads \u201cto suck Joseph out\u201d (exmuzein) but this makes little sense. Perhaps an original Heb. mahatz (\u201cstrike down\u201d) was miscopied as matzatz (\u201csuck\u201d).
\n1:9. lest two tribes Ephraim and Manasseh, Joseph\u2019s two sons, each of whom went on to found a tribe.
\n2:2. truly see a face A difficult phrase; whose face? Presumably this derives from an error in translation or copying. Anger blinds a person, Dan says, so that no one who is angry can \u201ctruly see in front of him,\u201d (Heb. lir\u2019ot lefanayv), i.e., recognize who or what is right in front of him; \u201cin front of him\u201d is lit. \u201cto his face.\u201d
\n2:3. For if it is [his] father A subtle, but typical, feature of such lists in Hebrew is to have the last item in the list deviate from all the preceding in some feature (see, e.g., Ps. 115:5\u20137; 146:8\u20139); here each item begins with \u201cif it is\u201d except for the last (\u201che will not acknowledge a friend\u201d).
\nif it is a prophet of the LORD See above on T. Jud. 18:5.
\n2:4. The Spirit of anger \u2026 in nets of deceit These seem to be (or to be similar to) the nets that belong to the angel of deceit, namely Belial, who is elsewhere said to have \u201cthree nets\u201d; see CD col. 4:15.
\n2:5. hatred [in] the heart Lit., \u201cof the heart,\u201d a phrase borrowed from Lev. 19:17, that is, \u201chidden hatred\u201d that festers because it remains hidden in the heart, unexpressed\u2014hence the connection between such hatred and lying.
\nso that he [the Spirit] gives him his [i.e., the Spirit\u2019s] own heart A different mentality and way of seeing.
\n3:1. becomes a soul to the soul The sense seems to be similar to 2:5: the Spirit of anger takes over the person\u2019s soul and directs it, just as the soul itself normally directs the body. But some mss.: \u201che throws the soul into turmoil.\u201d In either case, \u201canger\u201d in this and the following verses seems to be the Spirit of anger, as is explicitly the case in 3:6.
\n3:2\u20134. has a threefold power in his anger The wording in Greek does not quite make the point, which is, rather, that when a powerful (that is, wealthy) person is taken over by the Spirit of anger, he automatically gains additional power\u2014the power of this wicked Spirit\u2014in three separate areas: the Spirit\u2019s power enters into, or is expressed through, the rich man\u2019s \u201cservants\u201d and subordinates; second, it acts through \u201chis wealth, by which he can persuade and win an unfair victory,\u201d presumably in court; and third, it enters into the person\u2019s actual body and physical strength, which can also be enlisted to \u201cwork evil.\u201d
\n3:5\u20136. a twofold power beyond that of [his ordinary] nature That is, beyond such means as he normally has available, since the Spirit of anger \u201calways helps them\u201d [i.e., people] when it comes to breaking the law. So, even though the weak person has no servants and no money for bribery, his normal power is augmented\u2014and not just by the Spirit of anger who will help him.
\nThat Spirit \u2026 always goes with \u2026 [the Spirit of] lying See above on 2:2\u20135.
\n4:1\u20132. recognize the power of [the Spirit] of anger, how deceptive he is! Gk. mataios has a broad range of meaning: \u201cfutile\u201d or \u201cin vain,\u201d but also \u201cfalse\u201d or \u201cdeceiving.\u201d This last seems to be the intended meaning here: certainly what the author is about to say is not that the Spirit\u2019s power is futile, but that he deceives the angry person into doing what he or she ought not to do.
\nin words That is, the Spirit of anger leads a person to speak words in anger; \u201cthen he\u201d [the Spirit of anger] \u201cpushes him\u201d to \u201cdeeds.\u201d
\nstirs up his [the person\u2019s] disposition because of the bitter penalties incurred Now the person has to reckon with the bitter consequences of his actions\u2014perhaps in some cases having to recompense the victims of his angry acts\u2014and this only makes him angrier.
\nchurns up the [person\u2019s] soul to great anger That is, anger in the highest degree. (Note that what enters the mind or heart eventually lodges in the soul. See below, 4:7.)
\n4:4 This verse has been garbled in all versions, but the sense is not difficult to discern. \u201cFor just as the latter\u201d (someone saying something nice about you) \u201cis pleasant to hear,\u201d so does the former (someone saying something unkind about you) \u201cdisturb the mind.\u201d For the contrast of kind and unkind words, Prov. 27:6, \u201cJust as a friend\u2019s criticisms [lit., \u201cwounds\u201d] are long-lasting, so are an enemy\u2019s kisses fleeting.\u201d
\n4:5. if you should happen to incur any damage That is, the damage, material or otherwise, was accidental, or if you yourself lost something.
\n4:6. if you should suffer damage voluntarily This makes little sense, still less in the overall context. It seems likely the original must have said: Even if you should suffer damage committed willfully, that is, Heb. bemezid\u2014someone actually set out to harm you. This is meant to contrast with the previous case, where the loss or injury was accidental (\u201chappen to incur\u201d).
\n4:7. Anger with lying Already described as natural allies; see above on 2:1, 2:2\u20135.
\njoin together in order to stir up the [soul\u2019s] disposition That is, the soul\u2019s disposition\u2014see above on 4:1\u20132\u2014is connected to the soul proper, so its being stirred up leads to \u201cthe soul\u201d being \u201cstirred up continuously.\u201d
\n5:1. keep the LORD\u2019s commandments and guard His Torah As elsewhere, God\u2019s Torah is spoken of here even though it has not yet been publicly proclaimed at Mt. Sinai; if you do so, you will \u201cturn aside from anger and \u2026 lying,\u201d the deadly duo.
\n5:2. Speak the truth to each other Since truth, the opposite of lying, will prevent you from falling into the clutches of anger and quarreling.
\nyou will not fall into wrath \u2026 peace will be yours, and the God of peace will be with you In Rabbinic writings, shalom (peace, but also \u201cwell-being\u201d) is held to be no less than an appellation of God (see Lev. Rab. 9:9, B. Shab. 10b); \u201cSaid R. Shimon b. Halafta, \u2018The Holy One chose peace as the vehicle for blessing Israel, as it is said, \u201cMay the LORD bless his people with peace\u201d (Ps. 29:11)\u2019 \u201d (M. Uk. 3:12). Elsewhere, the angel who is said to watch over Israel is called \u201cthe angel of peace\u201d; see below on 6:2\u20134.
\n5:3. Love the LORD with all your life Lit., \u201cin all your life,\u201d but this and the next clause (\u201cand each other with a true heart\u201d) constitute another clear allusion to the two \u201cAnd you shall loves\u201d in the Torah, namely, Deut. 6:5 and Lev. 19:18. Since \u201cwith all your soul\u201d in Deut. 6:5 was interpreted as \u201ceven at the cost of your life\u201d (see Sifre Deut. 96), it seems likely that the author here was simply seeking to make that understanding clear by writing \u201cwith all your life\u201d (Heb. bekhol hayyekha), which was then misconstrued in Gk. as \u201cin all your life.\u201d
\n5:4. in time to come Lit., \u201cin the last days\u201d; see above on T. Jud. 18:1.
\nYou will \u2026 despise Levi and set yourselves against Judah Dan \u201cforesees\u201d that the northern tribes (including his own) will split from the southern tribe of Judah and the Levites with it.
\nbut you will not overcome them, for an angel of the LORD leads both of them Guardian angels were associated with each nation of the world, like the \u201cangel of the kingdom of Persia\u201d mentioned in Dan. 10:13. Israel was sometimes said to have a guardian angel as well (despite Deut. 32:7\u20138, which was traditionally taken to imply that while lesser deities ruled over other nations, God ruled over Israel\u2019s fortunes directly).
\nand thanks to them Israel will prevail A somewhat puzzling phrase, but it seems the author means that \u201cIsrael\u201d\u2014despite such opposition as the tribes of Levi and Judah may encounter\u2014will nevertheless survive.
\n5:5. doing all the abominations of the Gentiles The author has in mind sexual immorality, as the next clause makes clear; such immorality was commonly attributed to non-Jews in Second Temple period literature; cf. T. Jud. 23:2.
\nin every forbidden union The Gk. has simply porneia (= Heb. zenut, licentiousness), on which see above, T. Reub. 1:6: this term includes not only adultery but other forbidden sexual acts, such as incest, bestiality, homosexual acts, and lewdness.
\nwith all the Spirits of deceit The wicked emissaries the chief angel of deceit, Beliar.
\n5:6. the book of the righteous Enoch See above on T. Sim. 5:4.
\nthat your guardian angel This Gk. term, arch\u014dn, is different from the one used in 5:4 (angelos), but apparently refers to the same sort of divine being who was deemed to be in charge of whole nations and their fate (see Dan. 10:13, which uses this same term). What Dan sees is truly shocking: the guardian angel controlling his sons\u2019 fate is none other than \u201cSatan.\u201d
\nwill turn their attention to Levi and keep a close watch on Levi\u2019s sons, so as to make them sin before the LORD Since elsewhere in the Testaments, the patriarchs urge their sons to be obedient to Levi, this verse and the next, highly critical of Levi and Judah, must appear surprising. If the injunctions to follow Levi reflect Hasmonean times, and the additional exhortations to obey Judah are the work of a (later) opponent of exclusive Hasmonean hegemony, one must ask if this and other passages critical of Levi\u2019s sons (T. Levi 14\u201315), and Judah\u2019s (T. Jud. 21:6\u20139 and 23) might stem from a still later hand.
\n5:8. you will be led into captivity with them With whom? Surely Dan\u2019s sons were not led into exile with the sons of Judah\u2014the former were exiled following the Assyrian conquest of the Northern Kingdom, the latter with the fall of the Southern Kingdom to Babylon a century and a half later. If, however, vv. 6 and 7 are a later insertion, then this verse is asserting that Dan\u2019s sons will be led into captivity \u201cwith them,\u201d that is, with \u201call the Spirits of deceit at work within you.\u201d
\nand there you will suffer from all the plagues of Egypt As predicted in Deut. 28:60. Having violated God\u2019s covenant, they will no longer qualify for God\u2019s promise in Deut. 7:15.
\n5:9\u201310. once you return to the LORD, He will grant you mercy Deut 30:2\u20133.
\nHe will bring you to His sanctuary This seems unlikely; Deut. 30:5 says \u201cbring you to the land.\u201d Perhaps the original text read: \u201cand bring you to the holy land [eretz ha-kodesh], which was then mistaken for \u201csanctuary\u201d [mikdash].
\nand grant you peace. \u2026 And from the tribe of Judah and Levi It is not clear if this was part of the Christian interpolation that follows or simply a prediction of the coming restoration of Israel\u2019s fortunes. Certainly the doctrine of two messiahs, a priestly and a royal one, is known elsewhere from Second Temple period literature.
\n5:11. And He will take the [ones in] captivity That is, take the exiled peoples out of Beliar\u2019s control, and then \u201creturn the disobedient hearts to the LORD\u201d (cf. Mal. 3:24). The remaining verses, vv. 12\u201313, are clearly of a Christian character.
\n6:1. fear the LORD The common biblical expression for doing God\u2019s bidding, as opposed to \u201cguard yourselves against Satan,\u201d a different kind of fear entirely.
\n6:2. the angel who intercedes for you See above on 5:4. It is not absolutely clear in the Testaments who Israel\u2019s guardian angel is; in other texts he does often have a name, usually Michael, but sometimes some other name. Below in 6:5, he is referred to as \u201cthe angel of peace,\u201d and this may be all the identification he needs, since this same designation appears in T. Ash. 6:4\u20136 and T. Benj. 6:1, as well as in 4Q365 Prayer of Enosh frag. 1 2:9. The existence of such an \u201cangel of peace\u201d appears to be based on Isa. 33:7\u20139.
\n6:3. the enemy No mortal enemy, but Satan.
\n6:4. on the day that Israel believes Puts their trust in God. Cf. Mek. R. Ish., Besh., Amalek 1: \u201cWhenever Israel would look [at Moses\u2019s raised hands] and put their trust in the One who ordered Moses, God would perform miracles and powerful feats for them.\u201d
\nthe enemy\u2019s [i.e., Satan\u2019s] kingdom A non-specific reference, but most likely the author has the Roman empire in mind, designated in Rabbinic literature as \u201cthe kingdom of evil.\u201d
\nwill be brought to an end \u201cWhen You cause the wicked regime to pass from the earth\u201d (Day of Atonement Amidah, from Seder R. Amram and Mahzor Vitry).
\n6:5. The angel of peace See above on 6:2.
\n6:9. the things that you have heard from your father The lessons that Dan has been passing along\u2014perhaps not only those in this testament\u2014\u2014including the teachings of Jacob and Abraham and Enoch that, according to Jubilees and other texts, were said to have preceded the great promulgation of divine teachings at Mt. Sinai. The second part of this verse is clearly a Christian interpolation.
\n6:10. cling to the righteousness of God\u2019s Torah The \u201crighteousness [Gk. dikaiosun\u0113] of the Torah\u201d may be intended here, as elsewhere, in a special sense: see above on T. Levi 13:5. Some mss. even omit \u201cof the Torah,\u201d since this is in any case implied by dikaiosun\u0113.
\nso that [your] people Gk. genos, \u201crace,\u201d that is, the people of Israel.
\nwill be safe forever Lit., \u201cwill be for eternal salvation.\u201d It is not clear syntactically if it is Israel\u2019s salvation that is promised, or the world\u2019s salvation through Israel.
\n6:11. bury me near my fathers In Hebron.
\n7:2. his sons buried him. And afterward they brought up his bones This wording is slightly different from that of the other Testaments; here, Dan is first buried and only \u201cafterward\u201d are his bones transported. In biblical Hebrew, \u201cbones\u201d are ambiguous, meaning either \u201clast remains\u201d from the time of death on, or the actual bones after the dead body\u2019s flesh has decomposed.
\nto near Abraham and Isaac and Jacob Why \u201cnear\u201d? He was buried in exactly the same place! This too seems to be a translator\u2019s error, who read \u201cto near\u201d (lekarob) for \u201cto the grave\u201d (la-keber), that is, the great family grave in the Cave of the Machpelah. Despite Dan\u2019s warnings, however, his descendants \u201cforgot God\u2019s Torah.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Testament of Naphtali<\/p>\n

1:2. in the seventh month, on the first day Which would be the Day of Trumpet Blasts (Lev. 23:4; Num. 29:1).
\nwhen he was in good health A somewhat surprising detail, omitted in some mss.; it may have been added to explain the sons\u2019 disbelief in the next verse.
\n1:4. And blessing the LORD, he grew strong Modeled on Gen. 48:2. The LXX translators used a different verb for \u201cgrew strong,\u201d indicating that the Greek translator here did not recognize the allusion; as a result, \u201cgrew strong\u201d was taken in the sense of \u201c[re] affirmed\u201d and the words and said were dropped from some mss. Nevertheless, he told his sons that \u201che was dying.\u201d
\n1:6. and because Rachel acted in trickery No trickery is associated with Rachel\u2019s giving Bilhah to Jacob in the biblical account (see Gen. 30:1\u20138), and it is difficult to see how an interpreter could impute trickery to her. But the Hebrew term that probably underlies this assertion is ormah, which, while it generally means \u201ctrickery,\u201d is also an altogether positive trait in Wisdom Literature, a synonym of \u201cwisdom\u201d itself (see Prov. 1:4; 8:5, 8:12; Job 5:13). It seems likely that it is in the latter sense that the word was used here, but that the Greek translator, unaware of this positive sense, translated \u2018ormah with the unambiguous panourgia. Probably, our author\u2019s intention was simply to say that Rachel had acted cleverly; note that Josephus (Ant. 1:304) says Naphtali was so named \u201cbecause his mother [i.e., Rachel, the adoptive mother] had outmaneuvered her sister\u2019s fertility.\u201d (Note also that the LXX account of Naphtali\u2019s naming explains it as reflecting the fact that \u201cI contended with my sister and prevailed.\u201d)
\ngave birth to me on Rachel\u2019s knees Gen. 30:3: that is, Rachel became Naphtali\u2019s adoptive mother.
\n1:9\u201310. my mother is Bilhah, the daughter of Rotheus Some items in this and the following verses match the Dead Sea Scrolls text 4Q215 T. Naph., presumably a Hebrew forerunner of the Greek T. Naph. However, in this Hebrew text, Bilhah\u2019s father is called Ahiyot. Interestingly, this passage is also extensively paralleled in Bereshit Rabbati 11:12\u201318; there, the father\u2019s name is \u201cAhotai,\u201d which Albeck suggested might be a deformation of \u201cArotai,\u201d whence the Greek Rotheus. (In the light of 4Q215 \u201cAhiyot,\u201d it would appear that the change actually went in the opposite direction.)
\na brother of Deborah, Rebekah\u2019s nurse-maid This was Bilhah\u2019s father; the Bible says nothing about Bilhah\u2019s father. Here he is Deborah\u2019s brother; 4Q215 likewise speaks of \u201c[my mot] her Bilhah and her a[unt] Deborah, who nursed Rebe[kah].\u201d
\na God-fearing Chaldean, a free man of noble birth That is, although he was from Chaldean, the land whose inhabitants, according to a wide-spread tradition, had caused Abraham and his family to flee, he was not an idolator but one who feared God (he may have been a member of Abraham\u2019s extended family [moledet], whom Abraham was commanded to leave in Gen. 12:2), a free man (i.e., not a slave) and, in fact, wellborn.
\n1:11. But having been taken captive, he was bought by Laban [as a slave]: and he [Laban] gave him his servant-girl Aina 4Q215 reads: \u201cAnd he was taken captive, and Laban sent [money] and redeemed him, and he [i.e., Laban] gave him Hannah, one of his sister[s], and she conceived and gave birth] to Zilpah first. And he gave her the name \u2018Zilpah\u2019 after the name of the city in which he was held captive.\u201d None of these details appears in the biblical account.
\n1:12. \u201cMy daughter is eager for what is fresh\u201d The \u201cwhat is fresh\u201d part of this word is probably a mistake in transmission or translation, since the words that follow, \u201cfor as soon as she was born, she was eager to nurse,\u201d say nothing about freshness; they are intended merely to assert that she was eager (Heb. mitbahelet, which appears in the Hebrew version in Bereshit Rabbati) to do something, thus suggesting the name Bilhah. 4Q215: \u201cAnd she conceived and gave birth to Bilhah, my mother. And Hannah called her name Bilhah, because when she was born [\u2026] she was in a hurry (mitbahelet) to nurse. And she said, \u2018How my daughter hurries!\u2019 \u201d
\n2:1. And since I was \u2026 like a deer See Gen. 49:21. It is clear that the author of this passage did not know the Torah in Greek, since the LXX of this verse is quite different: \u201cNaphtali is a [plant\u2019s] stock set free\u201d\u2014there is no deer at all in the Greek verse!
\nmy father appointed me [to carry] all messages and announcements This corresponds to the second half of Gen. 49:21, \u201cwho gives beautiful words.\u201d Again, this is strikingly different from the LXX\u2019s \u201cbestowing beauty by its produce.\u201d
\n2:2. For just as the potter knows the vessel God is depicted as a potter in Isa. 29:16; 45:9; etc.
\nso did the LORD form the body in the likeness of the spirit The comparison is not altogether clear. If the human body corresponds to the clay, then the spirit must correspond to the \u201cvessel\u201d before it is made, that is, the (Platonic?) idea of the vessel. But if so, then in what sense can this verse continue \u201cand according to the strength of the body He puts in the spirit\u201d? It really should be the opposite: according to the spirit it is to house, He determines the strength of the body. In any case, the starting point for this meditation (which continues through v. 8) seems to be Jacob\u2019s blessing of Naphtali. For the author, Jacob\u2019s blessing refers to Naphtali\u2019s spiritual gifts\u2014he is to \u201cgive beautiful words\u201d\u2014and so Naphtali was therefore given his swift body to correspond to that spiritual mission.
\n2:3 Here Naphtali begins to address the central theme of his testament: that God has arranged everything in the world according to a certain, fixed order (Gk. taxis, Heb. and Aram. seder; see 2:8). The orderliness of things is such that body and soul are perfectly proportioned, so that \u201cthe one does not fall short of the other\u201d even by the smallest measure.
\nby weight and measure and standard The original text was a slight misquotation of Lev. 19:35, \u201cin measure, in weight, and in capacity.\u201d
\n2:4. as the potter knows the use of each and every [vessel]\u2014what it is suited for Having created a pot or bowl or pitcher, he knows what it can be used for, whether for cooking or merely holding food and the like; \u201cso does the LORD know the [human] body\u201d and can judge how much temptation it can stand before it leads a person astray.
\n2:5. For there is no creature Lit., no plasma, something molded or shaped; this was apparently a translator\u2019s rendering of m. Heb. yetzur or yatzir, \u201ccreature.\u201d It may be, however, that the original Hebrew read yetzer, \u201cdisposition,\u201d since this would fit better with \u201cno thought\u201d in the continuation of the sentence.
\n2:6. for as is his [the person\u2019s] strength, so also his action Another manifestation of the perfect order of things: a person\u2019s physical strength corresponds to what he does in life.
\nand as his mind, so also his skill With little or no mental ability, he lacks what is necessary to act skillfully.
\nas his intended plan, so also his accomplishment Gk. proairesis (\u201cplan\u201d) implies a set of priorities that predetermines the path or purpose a person will follow, and this in turn dictates the outcome.
\nand as his heart, so also his mouth A very unbiblical sentiment, since in the Bible a person often hides his true sentiments in his heart and speaks hypocritically: See Prov. 26:23\u201326, cf. Lev. 19:17.
\nas his eye, so also his sleep Perhaps the meaning is that, if a person\u2019s eye (his glance) is steady, not darting left and right like that of a schemer, then his sleep will be similarly steady and uninterrupted; again, this is altogether unbiblical, where the eyes are the seat of desire (often sexual). It may also be that the text is corrupt.
\n2:7. no one can say that one is the same as the other in appearances or in ideas Cf. M. Sanh. 4:5, \u201cGod created only one human [to begin with] \u2026 in order to demonstrate the greatness of the Holy One: for when a man mints a number of coins with a single stamp, all of them look alike; but God minted all of humanity with the stamp of Adam, and yet none of them is the same as the other.\u201d
\n2:8. For God made everything good in an order A near quotation of Eccles. 3:11, significantly substituting \u201cin an order\u201d for \u201cin its time,\u201d in keeping with Testament of Naphtali\u2019s central theme (above on 2:3). It is difficult to characterize the list that follows, which seems to blend Greek and Jewish traditions together. Thus, \u201cthe five senses\u201d as a group are unknown as such in the Bible, and when senses are mentioned together, it is usually only sight and hearing (e.g., Deut. 29:3); Ps. 115:5\u20137 comes the closest but still falls short of five. The idea of five senses was, however, taken over under Hellenistic influence. See above on T. Reub. 2:3.
\nand hair for glory Some mss. \u201cfor glory and comeliness\u201d which sounds like an echo of Exod. 28:2 and 40 (though not in the LXX). The rest of this list is paralleled by similar lists in other ancient texts. Particularly noteworthy is that found in the Hebrew \u201cTestament of Naphtali\u201d (different from the Qumran fragment and generally judged to be later than the Greek T. Naph.). Other Rabbinic lists are to be found in B. Ber. 61a and b and Otiot R. Akiba.
\na heart to understand The heart is the traditional seat of understanding in biblical Hebrew.
\nthe windpipe for health The Gk. has kalamos, \u201creed,\u201d but this is clearly a mistaken translation of Heb. kaneh, which can mean both \u201creed\u201d and \u201cwindpipe\u201d (the windpipe is probably not \u201cfor health\u201d but for breathing or, perhaps, speaking; Otiot R. Akiba has: \u201cto draw in and to take out\u201d).
\nthe liver for anger See above on T. Sim. 2:4, 7; below, on T. Gad 5:9.
\nthe kidneys for trickiness Probably again a mistranslation of \u2018ormah, \u201cwisdom\u201d (see above on 1:6); in Otiot R. Akiba: the kidneys are for \u201ccounsel.\u201d
\n2:9. be ordered for the good Here the author returns to the assertion that opens the previous long verse, \u201cGod made everything good in an order.\u201d
\n2:10. For if you tell the eye to hear A strange comparison, but one that reprises the assertion of 2:7. The apparent sense is that, since God has created everything according to a certain order, creating the eye for seeing and not for hearing, so He has established moral boundaries in similarly absolute terms: if you are in spiritual darkness, you will be as unable to do \u201cacts of light\u201d as the eye is to hear.
\n3:1. So do not be eager Corresponding to the Heb. b-h-l (see above on 1:12), but the Heb. word connotes rushing in disorder, hence the transition from the previous sentence concerning order.
\nto corrupt your deeds Another apparent Hebraism; le-hash\u2019hit means not so much \u201cdestroy\u201d or \u201ccorrupt\u201d as \u201cto go astray\u201d or \u201cact wantonly.\u201d One ms. (c) omits \u201cyour deeds,\u201d and this would better correspond to the Hebrew expression.
\nor to deceive your souls with vain words Heb. dibrei shayv, i.e., false words (see above on Dan. 4:1\u20132).
\n3:2. The sun and the moon and the stars do not change their order A well-known theme in Second Temple literature.
\ndo you not change God\u2019s Torah Is that even possible? But the sense is: do not depart from God\u2019s Torah. If so, the underlying Heb. text may have read s-w-r \u201cswerve from\u201d and was translated in both places as \u201cchange\u201d in Gk.: just as the sun, the moon, and the stars do not swerve from their preordained orbits, do not swerve yourselves.
\n3:3. the nations \u2026 changed their order That is, departed from the divine plan of things.
\nwent after wood and stone Bowed down to vain idols (Deut. 4:28).
\n3:4. so that you will not become like [the population of] Sodom A frequent example of sinfulness in the Bible itself as well as in Second Temple literature.
\nwhich changed the order of its nature An apparent allusion to their sexual sins.
\n3:5. So too did the Watchers change the order of nature The \u201cWatchers\u201d are the angels (\u201csons of God,\u201d Gen. 6:3), who were thought to be the proximate cause of the great flood. They were said to have \u201cchanged the order of nature\u201d by taking human wives: see 1 En. 12:4, 15:2\u20134; Jude 6. 4:1. the holy book
\nof Enoch See above on T. Sim. 5:4.
\n4:2. This verse and the next echo the \u201cadmonition\u201d section of Deut. 28; note especially \u201cevery [form of] mistreatment and oppression\u201d (cf. Deut. 28:53, 55) and \u201cto the point of the LORD destroying all of you\u201d (cf. Deut. 28:21, 61).
\n4:3. And after you have been made few [in number] Deut. 28:62.
\nyou will know the LORD That is, be obedient to Him: Isa. 1:3.
\n4:4 The indicated words are an obvious Christian interpolation, but perhaps the interpolation began at the start of this verse, marked by the change from second person plural to third.
\n5:1\u20132 Naphtali\u2019s Vision This section is paralleled by the late Hebrew \u201cTestament of Naphtali\u201d; neither version is altogether coherent or comprehensible. In his vision, Naphtali sees \u201cthe sun and the moon \u2026 were standing still,\u201d just as Joshua saw in Josh. 10:12\u201313. Then, Naphtali sees his grandfather Isaac, who challenges his grandsons to try to seize the sun and the moon.
\n5:3. and both of them were lifted up with them That is, Levi and Judah with their prizes, the sun and the moon. Clearly this symbolizes these two brothers winning the twin \u201cprizes\u201d of the priesthood and the kingship of Israel.
\n5:4\u20135. And Levi was like the sun Here, the priesthood is clearly superior to kingship.
\nand a certain young man held out twelve palm branches \u2026 twelve rays [of light] In each case, the \u201ctwelve\u201d signifies the destiny of these two tribes to hold their offices over all the twelve tribes of Israel.
\ntook hold of each other Some mss.: \u201ctook hold of them\u201d (apparently, the twelve palm branches and the twelve rays of light), which makes equally good sense: they were thus initiated into their leadership roles.
\n5:6\u20137. a bull was upon the earth The bull would eventually become the symbol of Joseph (Deut. 33:7).
\ncaught up and seized it and was lifted up on high His flight apparently symbolizes the departure of \u201cJoseph\u201d\u2014the northern tribes\u2014from Judah and Levi in the south. If this is indeed the intended meaning, however, the vision is somewhat incoherent, since it should have the other northern tribes swept up along with Joseph.
\n5:8. And then I saw\u2014for I was there This is the reading of some mss: others have \u201cand I saw that I was in gardens,\u201d but even in this bizarre vision, that makes little sense. Since this sentence introduces what amounts to a quite separate mini-vision, it probably began somewhat differently, \u201cAnd while I was there [that is, on the Mount of Olives] I looked and behold! A holy scroll appeared.\u201d
\nAssyrians, the Medes, the Persians, Elamites, Gelachaeans, the Chaldeans, and Syrians Naphtali apparently sees the future conquest and oppression of Israel by foreign nations. Such visions were common in Second Temple times; one form is that of the \u201cFour Empires\u201d that succeed one another. In Naphtali\u2019s vision, the only nation of those listed that actually did lead any of the tribes into captivity is Assyria, whose army conquered and exiled the northern tribes. The Medes, Persians, and Elamites (an old name for Persians) are essentially one entity; far from leading the Jews into captivity, the Persian emperor Cyrus actually allowed them to return to their homeland after having been exiled by the Babylonians, who are perhaps to be identified with the Chaldeans in this list (but if so, they should come before the Persians). The \u201cGelachaeans\u201d are unknown and do not appear in some manuscripts. As for the (Hellenized) Syrians, that is, the Seleucids, they did rule over Judea for a time in the 2nd century BCE, but they did not exile the Jews from their land. In short, this vision has two parts. In the first part (5:1\u20137), Naphtali sees Levi and Judah acquiring their leadership roles, while Joseph is borne away; in the second part (5:8), he learns from a holy scroll of the future captivity and oppression awaiting Israel. But then he has a second vision.<\/p>\n

<\/s><\/s><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

will blossom as a rose in Israel This and the following metaphors are a development of Hosea 14:6\u20138 (perhaps borrowed from what was once an independent homily on this passage). However, the phrase \u201cmy bones will blossom\u201d seems doubly strange: bones don\u2019t blossom, and in any case the rest of the passage seems to be … <\/p>\n

\u201eOutside the Bible Commentary – 19\u201c <\/span>weiterlesen<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2149","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-allgemein"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/buch.jehovah-shammah.de\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2149","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/buch.jehovah-shammah.de\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/buch.jehovah-shammah.de\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/buch.jehovah-shammah.de\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/buch.jehovah-shammah.de\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2149"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/buch.jehovah-shammah.de\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2149\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2172,"href":"http:\/\/buch.jehovah-shammah.de\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2149\/revisions\/2172"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/buch.jehovah-shammah.de\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2149"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/buch.jehovah-shammah.de\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2149"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/buch.jehovah-shammah.de\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2149"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}