Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs
Anonymous
Book Testament of Zebulun · 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.
For Simeon and Gad came against Joseph to kill him, and he said unto them with tears: Pity me, my brethren, have mercy upon the bowels of Jacob our father:
lay not upon me your hands to shed innocent blood, for I have not sinned against you.
And if indeed I have sinned, with chastening chastise me, my brethren but lay not upon me your hand, for the sake of Jacob our father.
And as he spoke these words, wailing as he did so, I was unable to bear his lamentations, and began to weep, and my liver was poured out, and all the substance of my bowels was loosened.
And I wept with Joseph, and my heart sounded, and the joints of my body trembled, and I was not able to stand.
And when Joseph saw me weeping with him, and them coming against him to slay him, he fled behind me, beseeching them.