Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs
Anonymous
Book Testament of Issachar · Chapter 7
About this work
A collection of farewell discourses attributed to the twelve sons of Jacob, combining ethical exhortation, autobiographical retelling, and eschatological material. The transmitted text preserves Jewish traditions alongside Christian material or interpolation, and its compositional history remains debated.
- Author
- Anonymous
- Date
- Second Temple Jewish material; transmitted form includes later Christian elements.
- Origin
- Unknown
- Genre
- Testamentary Literature / Pseudepigrapha
- Textual language
- Greek textual tradition; earlier sources and layers are debated.
- Translator
- R. H. Charles
- Translation / Edition
- R. H. Charles translation, first published 1908.
Behold, therefore, as ye see, I am a hundred and twenty-six years old and am not conscious of committing any sin.
Except my wife I have not known any woman. I never committed fornication by the uplifting of my eyes.
I drank not wine, to be led astray thereby; I coveted not any desirable thing that was my neighbour's.
Guile arose not in my heart; A lie passed not through my lips.
If any man were in distress I joined my sighs with his, And I shared my bread with the poor. I wrought godliness, all my days I kept truth I loved the Lord;
Likewise also every man with all my heart. So do you also these things, my children,
And every spirit of Beliar shall flee from you, And no deed of wicked men shall rule over you; And every wild beast shall ye subdue, Since you have with you the God of heaven and earth (And) walk with men in singleness of heart.