Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs
Anonymous
Book Testament of Levi · Chapter 2
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.
I, Levi, was born in Haran, and I came with my father to Shechem.
And I was young, about twenty years of age, when, with Simeon, I wrought vengeance on Hamor for our sister Dinah.
And when I was feeding the flocks in Abel-Maul, the spirit of understanding of the Lord came upon me, and I saw all men corrupting their way, and that unrighteousness had built for itself walls, and lawlessness sat upon towers.
And I was grieving for the race of the sons of men, and I prayed to the Lord that I might be saved.
Then there fell upon me a sleep, and I beheld a high mountain, and I was upon it.
And behold the heavens were opened and an angel of God said to me, Levi enter
And I entered from the first heaven, and I saw there a great sea hanging.