Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs
Anonymous
Book Testament of Zebulun · 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.
And after he was sold my brothers sat down to eat and drink.
But I, through pity for Joseph, did not eat, but watched the pit,
since Judah feared lest Simeon, Dan, and Gad should rush off and slay him.
But when they saw that I did not eat, they set me to watch him, till he was sold to the Ishmaelites.
And when Reuben came and heard that while he was away (Joseph) had been sold, he rent his garments, (and) mourning, said: How shall I look on the face of my father Jacob?
And he took the money and ran after the merchants, but as he failed to find them he returned grieving.
But the merchants had left the broad road and marched through the Troglodytes by a short cut.