Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs
Anonymous
Book Testament of Levi · Chapter 4
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.
Now, therefore, know that the Lord shall execute judgment upon the sons of men. Because when the rocks are being rent, And the sun quenched, And the waters dried up, And the fire cowering, And all creation troubled, And the invisible spirits melting away; And Hades taketh spoils through the visitations of the Most High, Men will be unbelieving and persist in their iniquity. On this account with punishment shall they be judged.
Therefore the Most High hath heard thy prayer, To separate thee from iniquity,
and that thou shouldst become to Him a son, And a servant, and a minister of His presence.
The light of knowledge shalt thou light up in Jacob, And as the sun shalt thou be to all the seed of Israel.
And there shall be given to thee a blessing, and to all thy seed, Until the Lord shall visit all the Gentiles in His tender mercies for ever.
And therefore there have been given to thee counsel and understanding, That thou mightst instruct thy sons concerning this;