Biblia Sacra•VETUS TESTAMENTUM
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[1] 1 In principio creavit Deus cælum et terram. 2 Terra autem erat inanis et vacua, et tenebræ erant super faciem abyssi: et spiritus Dei ferebatur super aquas. 3 Dixitque Deus: Fiat lux.
[1] 1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. 2 But the earth was inane and vacant, and darkness was over the face of the abyss: and the Spirit of God was borne over the waters. 3 And God said: Let there be light.
13 And there was evening and morning, the third day. 14 But God said: Let luminaries be in the firmament of heaven, and let them divide the day and the night, and let them be for signs and for seasons, and for days and years: 15 that they may shine in the firmament of heaven, and illumine the earth. And it was so.
16 And God made two great luminaries: the greater luminary, to preside over the day: and the lesser luminary, to preside over the night: and the stars. 17 And he set them in the firmament of heaven, that they might shine upon the earth, 18 and that they might preside over the day and the night, and divide the light and the darkness. And God saw that it was good.
19 And it came to pass, evening and morning, the fourth day. 20 And God also said: Let the waters bring forth a creeping thing of a living soul, and a winged thing over the earth under the firmament of heaven. 21 And God created great cetaceans, and every living and moveable soul which the waters had brought forth into their species, and every winged thing according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.
22 And he blessed them, saying: Increase, and be multiplied, and fill the waters of the sea; and let the birds be multiplied upon the earth. 23 And there was evening and morning, the fifth day. 24 God also said: Let the earth produce a living creature in its genus, cattle, and reptiles, and beasts of the earth according to their species.
And it was so. 25 And God made the beasts of the earth according to their species, and the cattle, and every reptile of the earth according to its kind. And God saw that it was good, 26 and he said: Let us make man in our image and similitude; and let him preside over the fish of the sea, and the birds of the heaven, and the beasts, and the whole earth, and every reptile that moves upon the earth.
27 And God created the human in his image: in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. 28 And God blessed them, and said: Grow and multiply, and fill the earth, and subject it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and the birds of heaven, and all the living creatures that move upon the earth. 29 And God said: Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed upon the earth, and all the trees which have in themselves the seed of their kind, that they may be for you for food: 30 and to all the living creatures of the earth, and to every bird of heaven, and to all that move upon the earth, and in which there is a living soul, that they may have for eating.
[2] 1 Igitur perfecti sunt cæli et terra, et omnis ornatus eorum. 2 Complevitque Deus die septimo opus suum quod fecerat: et requievit die septimo ab universo opere quod patrarat. 3 Et benedixit diei septimo, et sanctificavit illum, quia in ipso cessaverat ab omni opere suo quod creavit Deus ut faceret.
[2] 1 Therefore the heavens and the earth were perfected, and all their adornment. 2 And God completed on the seventh day his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all the work which he had accomplished. 3 And he blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it, because in it he had ceased from all his work which God created to make.
4 These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created, on the day in which the Lord God made heaven and earth, 5 and every shrub of the field before it arose on the earth, and every herb of the region before it sprouted: for the Lord God had not rained upon the earth, and there was not a man to work the earth; 6 but a spring was ascending from the earth, irrigating the whole surface of the earth. 7 Then the Lord God formed man from the clay of the earth, and breathed into his face the breath of life, and man was made into a living soul. 8 Moreover the Lord God had planted a paradise of delight from the beginning, in which he placed the man whom he had formed. 9 And the Lord God brought forth from the soil every tree beautiful to the sight, and sweet for eating; the tree also of life in the middle of the paradise, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
10 And a river was going out from the place of delight to irrigate the paradise, which from there is divided into four heads. 11 The name of one is Pishon: this is the one that encircles all the land of Havilah, where gold is produced: 12 and the gold of that land is the best; there is found bdellium, and the onyx stone. 13 And the name of the second river is Gihon; this is the one that encircles all the land of Ethiopia. 14 But the name of the third river, Tigris: it goes opposite the Assyrians.
But the fourth river, this is the Euphrates. 15 Therefore the Lord God took the man, and placed him in the paradise of delight, that he might work it and keep it: 16 and he commanded him, saying: Of every tree of the paradise eat; 17 but of the tree of the science of good and evil do not eat: for on whatever day you eat from it, by death you shall die. 18 The Lord God also said: It is not good that the man be alone: let us make for him a help similar to himself.
19 Therefore the Lord God, having formed from the soil all the living creatures of the earth and all the winged things of the heaven, brought them to Adam to see what he would call them: for whatever Adam called a living soul, that is its name. 20 And Adam named by their names all the animals, and all the winged things of the heaven, and all the beasts of the earth: but for Adam there was not found a helper like to him. 21 Therefore the Lord God sent a deep sleep into Adam: and when he had fallen asleep, he took one of his ribs, and filled up flesh in place of it. 22 And the Lord God built the rib which he had taken from Adam into a woman: and he brought her to Adam.
23 And Adam said: This now is bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Virago, because she was taken from the man. 24 Wherefore a man shall leave his father and his mother, and shall adhere to his wife: and the two shall be one flesh. 25 Now both were naked, namely Adam and his wife, and they were not ashamed.
[3] 1 Sed et serpens erat callidior cunctis animantibus terræ quæ fecerat Dominus Deus. Qui dixit ad mulierem: Cur præcepit vobis Deus ut non comederetis de omni ligno paradisi? 2 Cui respondit mulier: De fructu lignorum, quæ sunt in paradiso, vescimur: 3 de fructu vero ligni quod est in medio paradisi, præcepit nobis Deus ne comederemus, et ne tangeremus illud, ne forte moriamur.
[3] 1 But also the serpent was more cunning than all the animals of the earth which the Lord God had made. Who said to the woman: Why has God commanded you that you should not eat from every tree of the paradise? 2 To whom the woman responded: Of the fruit of the trees which are in the paradise, we eat: 3 but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the paradise, God has commanded us that we should not eat, and that we should not touch it, lest perhaps we die.
4 But the serpent said to the woman: By no means will you die by death. 5 For God knows that on whatever day you eat from it, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like gods, knowing good and evil. 6 Therefore the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and beautiful to the eyes, and delightful in aspect; and she took from its fruit and ate; and she gave also to her husband, who ate.
7 And the eyes of both were opened; and when they had come to know that they were naked, they sewed fig leaves, and made themselves girdles. 8 And when they heard the voice of the Lord God perambulating in the paradise at the breeze after midday, Adam and his wife hid themselves from the face of the Lord God in the midst of the tree of the paradise. 9 And the Lord God called Adam, and said to him: Where are you? 10 He said: I heard your voice in the paradise, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself. 11 He said to him: Who, indeed, indicated to you that you were naked, unless that you have eaten from the tree from which I had commanded you not to eat?
14 And the Lord God said to the serpent: [Because you have done this, accursed are you among all animals and the beasts of the earth: upon your breast you shall go, and earth you shall eat all the days of your life. 15 I will set enmities between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed: she will crush your head, and you will lie in wait for her heel.] 16 To the woman also he said: I will multiply your afflictions and your conceptions: in pain you shall bear sons, and you shall be under the power of the man, and he shall rule over you. 17 But to Adam he said: Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you that you should not eat, accursed is the earth in your work: in labors you shall eat from it all the days of your life. 18 Thorns and thistles it shall sprout for you, and you shall eat the herb of the earth. 19 In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, until you return into the earth from which you were taken: for you are dust and to dust you shall return. 20 And Adam called the name of his wife, Eve: because she was the mother of all the living.
21 The Lord God also made tunics of skin for Adam and his wife, and clothed them: 22 and said: Behold, Adam has become as one of us, knowing good and evil: now therefore, lest perhaps he stretch out his hand, and also take from the tree of life, and eat, and live forever. 23 And the Lord God sent him out of the paradise of delight, that he might work the ground from which he was taken. 24 And he ejected Adam: and he placed before the paradise of delight the cherubim, and a flaming sword, and revolving, to guard the way to the tree of life.
[4] 1 Adam vero cognovit uxorem suam Hevam, quæ concepit et peperit Cain, dicens: Possedi hominem per Deum. 2 Rursumque peperit fratrem ejus Abel. Fuit autem Abel pastor ovium, et Cain agricola.
[4] 1 But Adam indeed knew his wife Eve, who conceived and bore Cain, saying: I have acquired a man through God. 2 And again she bore his brother Abel. Now Abel was a pastor of sheep, and Cain an agriculturist.
3 And it came to pass after many days that Cain offered to the Lord gifts from the fruits of the earth. 4 Abel likewise offered from the firstborn of his flock, and from their fat portions; and the Lord had regard to Abel and to his gifts. 5 But to Cain, and to his gifts, he did not have regard; and Cain was vehemently angered, and his countenance fell.
11 Now therefore accursed shall you be upon the earth, which has opened its mouth and received the blood of your brother from your hand. 12 When you have worked it, it will not give you its fruits: a wanderer and a fugitive you shall be upon the earth. 13 And Cain said to the Lord: My iniquity is greater than that I should merit pardon.
14 Behold, you are casting me out today from the face of the land, and from your face I shall be hidden, and I shall be a vagabond and a fugitive on the earth: therefore everyone who finds me will kill me. 15 And the Lord said to him: By no means shall it be so: but whoever kills Cain shall be punished sevenfold. And the Lord set a sign for Cain, so that no one who found him would slay him. 16 And Cain, going out from the face of the Lord, dwelt as a fugitive in the land toward the eastern quarter of Eden.
17 And Cain knew his wife, who conceived and bore Henoch; and he built a city, and he called its name after the name of his son, Henoch. 18 Moreover Henoch begot Irad, and Irad begot Maviaël, and Maviaël begot Mathusaël, and Mathusaël begot Lamech. 19 Who took two wives, the name of the one Ada, and the name of the other Sella.
But the sister of Tubalcain was Noema. 23 And Lamech said to his wives, Ada and Sella: [Hear my voice, wives of Lamech; hearken to my speech: for I have slain a man to my wound, and a youth to my bruise. 24 Sevenfold vengeance will be given for Cain; but for Lamech, seventy times seven.] 25 And Adam also again knew his wife: and she bore a son, and he called his name Seth, saying: God has set for me another seed in place of Abel, whom Cain killed. 26 But also to Seth a son was born, whom he called Enos: this one began to call upon the name of the Lord.
[5] 1 Hic est liber generationis Adam. In die qua creavit Deus hominem, ad similitudinem Dei fecit illum. 2 Masculum et feminam creavit eos, et benedixit illis: et vocavit nomen eorum Adam, in die quo creati sunt.
[5] 1 This is the book of the generation of Adam. On the day on which God created man, according to the similitude of God he made him. 2 Male and female he created them, and he blessed them: and he called their name Adam, on the day on which they were created.
27 And all the days of Methuselah were nine hundred sixty-nine years, and he died. 28 And Lamech lived one hundred eighty-two years, and begot a son: 29 and he called his name Noah, saying: This one will console us from the works and labors of our hands in the earth which the Lord cursed. 30 And Lamech lived, after he begot Noah, five hundred ninety-five years, and he begot sons and daughters.
[6] 1 Cumque cœpissent homines multiplicari super terram, et filias procreassent, 2 videntes filii Dei filias hominum quod essent pulchræ, acceperunt sibi uxores ex omnibus, quas elegerant. 3 Dixitque Deus: Non permanebit spiritus meus in homine in æternum, quia caro est: eruntque dies illius centum viginti annorum. 4 Gigantes autem erant super terram in diebus illis: postquam enim ingressi sunt filii Dei ad filias hominum, illæque genuerunt, isti sunt potentes a sæculo viri famosi.
[6] 1 And when men began to multiply upon the earth, and had begotten daughters, 2 the sons of God, seeing that the daughters of men were beautiful, took for themselves wives from all whom they had chosen. 3 And God said: My spirit shall not remain in man forever, because he is flesh; and his days shall be 120 years. 4 Now giants were upon the earth in those days: for after the sons of God had come in to the daughters of men, and they bore, these are the mighty ones from of old, men of renown.
5 But God, seeing that great malice of men was on the earth, and that every thought of the heart was intent upon evil at all times, 6 it repented him that he had made man on the earth. And, touched inwardly by grief of heart, 7 I will blot out, he said, the human whom I created from the face of the earth, from man even to the animals, from the creeping thing even to the birds of heaven: for it repents me that I have made them. 8 But Noah found grace before the Lord.
12 And when God had seen that the earth was corrupt (for all flesh had corrupted its way upon the earth), 13 he said to Noah: The end of all flesh has come before me; the earth has been filled with iniquity by reason of them, and I will destroy them with the earth. 14 Make for yourself an ark of smoothed woods; mansions you shall make in the ark, and with bitumen you shall smear it within and without. 15 And thus you shall make it: 300 cubits shall be the length of the ark, 50 cubits its breadth, and 30 cubits its height.
16 You shall make a window in the ark, and to a cubit you shall complete its top; moreover, you shall put the door of the ark on the side; lower, second, and third stories you shall make in it. 17 Behold, I am bringing the waters of the Deluge upon the earth, to destroy all flesh in which is the spirit of life under heaven: all things that are on the earth shall be consumed. 18 And I will set my covenant with you: and you shall enter the ark, you and your sons, your wife, and your sons’ wives with you. 19 And of every living thing of all flesh you shall bring two into the ark, that they may live with you: of the male sex and of the female.
20 Of the birds according to their kind, and of the beasts according to their kind, and of every reptile of the earth according to its kind: by twos of all will enter with you, so that they may be able to live. 21 Therefore you shall take with you of all foods which can be eaten, and you shall bring in and store them with you: and they shall be for food both for you and for them. 22 Therefore Noah did all that God had commanded him.
[7] 1 Dixitque Dominus ad eum: Ingredere tu et omnis domus tua in arcam: te enim vidi justum coram me in generatione hac. 2 Ex omnibus animantibus mundis tolle septena et septena, masculum et feminam: de animantibus vero immundis duo et duo, masculum et feminam. 3 Sed et de volatilibus cæli septena et septena, masculum et feminam: ut salvetur semen super faciem universæ terræ. 4 Adhuc enim, et post dies septem ego pluam super terram quadraginta diebus et quadraginta noctibus: et delebo omnem substantiam, quam feci, de superficie terræ. 5 Fecit ergo Noë omnia quæ mandaverat ei Dominus.
[7] 1 And the Lord said to him: Enter you and all your house into the ark: for I have seen you just before me in this generation. 2 Of all the clean living creatures take seven and seven, male and female: but of the unclean living creatures two and two, male and female. 3 But also of the birds of the sky seven and seven, male and female: that seed may be saved upon the face of the whole earth. 4 For yet, after seven days, I will rain upon the earth forty days and forty nights: and I will blot out every substance which I have made from the surface of the earth. 5 Therefore Noah did all that the Lord had commanded him.
6 And he was six hundred years old when the waters of the deluge inundated the earth. 7 And Noah and his sons entered, his wife and the wives of his sons with him, into the ark on account of the waters of the deluge. 8 Also of the clean and unclean living creatures, and of the birds, and of everything that moves upon the earth, 9 two and two entered to Noah into the ark, male and female, as the Lord had commanded Noah. 10 And when seven days had passed, the waters of the deluge inundated the earth.
In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, all the founts of the great abyss were burst, and the cataracts of heaven were opened: and rain came to be upon the earth for forty days and forty nights. On the very point of that day Noah entered, and Shem, and Ham, and Japheth his sons; his wife, and the three wives of his sons with them, into the ark: they, and every animal according to its kind, and all the beasts of burden in their kind, and everything that moves upon the earth in its kind, and every winged thing according to its kind, all the birds, and all fliers, entered to Noah into the ark, two by two of all flesh in which was the spirit of life. And those that entered—male and female of all flesh—went in, as God had commanded him; and the Lord shut him in from outside. And the deluge came for forty days upon the earth, and the waters were multiplied and lifted the ark on high away from the earth.
18 For they inundated very vehemently, and filled all upon the surface of the earth: moreover the ark was borne upon the waters. 19 And the waters prevailed exceedingly over the earth: and all the high mountains under the whole heaven were covered. 20 The water was fifteen cubits higher above the mountains which it had covered. 21 And all flesh was consumed that moved upon the earth—of birds, of living creatures, of beasts, and of all creeping things that creep upon the earth: all men, 22 and all things in which is the breath of life on the land, died.
23 And he blotted out every substance that was upon the earth, from man even to cattle, both creeping thing and the birds of heaven; and they were blotted out from the earth. But Noah alone remained, and those who were with him in the ark. 24 And the waters held sway over the earth for one hundred and fifty days.
[8] 1 Recordatus autem Deus Noë, cunctorumque animantium, et omnium jumentorum, quæ erant cum eo in arca, adduxit spiritum super terram, et imminutæ sunt aquæ. 2 Et clausi sunt fontes abyssi, et cataractæ cæli: et prohibitæ sunt pluviæ de cælo. 3 Reversæque sunt aquæ de terra euntes et redeuntes: et cœperunt minui post centum quinquaginta dies. 4 Requievitque arca mense septimo, vigesimo septimo die mensis, super montes Armeniæ. 5 At vero aquæ ibant et decrescebant usque ad decimum mensem: decimo enim mense, primo die mensis, apparuerunt cacumina montium. 6 Cumque transissent quadraginta dies, aperiens Noë fenestram arcæ, quam fecerat, dimisit corvum, 7 qui egrediebatur, et non revertebatur, donec siccarentur aquæ super terram.
[8] 1 But God, remembering Noah, and all the living creatures, and all the beasts of burden that were with him in the ark, brought a wind over the earth, and the waters were diminished. 2 And the fountains of the abyss were shut, and the cataracts of heaven; and the rains from heaven were restrained. 3 And the waters returned from the earth, going to and fro; and they began to lessen after 150 days. 4 And the ark came to rest in the seventh month, on the 27th day of the month, upon the mountains of Armenia. 5 But indeed the waters kept going and decreasing until the 10th month; for in the 10th month, on the 1st day of the month, the peaks of the mountains appeared. 6 And when 40 days had passed, Noah, opening the window of the ark which he had made, sent forth a raven, 7 which went out and did not return until the waters were dried up from upon the earth.
8 He also sent out a dove after him, to see whether the waters had now ceased upon the face of the earth. 9 And when she had not found where her foot might rest, she returned to him into the ark: for waters were over the whole earth: and he stretched out his hand, and, taking hold of her, brought her into the ark. 10 But after waiting yet another seven days, he again sent forth the dove from the ark. 11 And she came to him toward evening, carrying an olive branch with green leaves in her mouth: therefore Noah understood that the waters had ceased over the earth.
12 And nevertheless he waited seven other days, and he sent forth the dove, which did not return to him any more. 13 Therefore, in the six hundred and first year, in the first month, on the first day of the month, the waters were diminished upon the earth; and Noah, opening the roof of the ark, looked out and saw that the surface of the earth had been dried. 14 In the second month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month, the earth was dried out. 15 But God spoke to Noah, saying: 16 Go out from the ark, you and your wife, your sons, and the wives of your sons with you.
17 All the living creatures that are with you, of every flesh, both among the winged and among the beasts and all the reptiles that crawl upon the earth, bring out with you, and go upon the earth: grow and be multiplied upon it. 18 Therefore Noah went out, and his sons: his wife, and the wives of his sons with him. 19 But also all the living creatures, the yoke-animals, and the reptiles that crawl upon the earth, according to their kind, went out from the ark. 20 And Noah built an altar to the Lord: and taking from all the clean herd-animals and birds, he offered holocausts upon the altar.
21 And the Lord smelled an odor of sweetness, and said: By no means will I any more curse the earth because of men; for the sense and cogitation of the human heart are prone to evil from his youth: therefore I will not any more strike every living soul as I have done. 22 For all the days of the earth, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, night and day shall not cease.
[9] 1 Benedixitque Deus Noë et filiis ejus. Et dixit ad eos: Crescite, et multiplicamini, et replete terram. 2 Et terror vester ac tremor sit super cuncta animalia terræ, et super omnes volucres cæli, cum universis quæ moventur super terram: omnes pisces maris manui vestræ traditi sunt.
[9] 1 And God blessed Noah and his sons. And he said to them: Grow, and be multiplied, and fill the earth. 2 And your terror and tremor shall be over all the animals of the earth, and over all the birds of the heavens, together with all things that move upon the earth: all the fishes of the sea have been delivered into your hand.
3 And everything that moves and lives shall be for you for food: as green herbs I have delivered to you all things. 4 Except that you shall not eat flesh with the blood. 5 For the blood of your souls I will require at the hand of all beasts: and at the hand of man, at the hand of a man and his brother, I will require the soul of man.
6 Whoever shall shed human blood, his blood shall be shed: for man was made in the image of God. 7 But you, grow and multiply, and go upon the earth, and fill it. 8 God also said these things to Noah, and to his sons with him: 9 Behold, I will establish my pact with you, and with your seed after you: 10 and with every living soul that is with you, both in the birds and in the draft-animals and the flocks of all the earth, which went out of the ark, and with all the beasts of the earth. 11 I will establish my pact with you, and never again shall all flesh be destroyed by the waters of a deluge, nor shall there be henceforth a deluge laying waste the earth.
12 And God said: This is the sign of the covenant which I give between me and you, and to every living soul which is with you, for everlasting generations: 13 my bow I will place in the clouds, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth. 14 And when I shall have overcast the heaven with clouds, my bow will appear in the clouds: 15 and I will remember my covenant with you, and with every living soul that animates flesh: and the waters of a deluge shall no more be for blotting out all flesh. 16 And the bow shall be in the clouds, and I will see it, and I will remember the everlasting covenant which has been covenanted between God and every living soul of all flesh that is upon the earth.
17 And God said to Noah: This shall be the sign of the covenant which I have established between me and all flesh upon the earth. 18 And the sons of Noah who went out of the ark were Shem, Ham, and Japheth: moreover Ham himself is the father of Canaan. 19 These three are the sons of Noah: and from these the whole race of humankind was disseminated over all the earth.
20 And Noah, a man, a husbandman, began to cultivate the land, and he planted a vineyard. 21 And, drinking wine, he became inebriated, and was uncovered in his tabernacle. 22 Which when Cham, the father of Canaan, had seen—namely that the pudenda of his father were laid bare—he announced it outside to his two brothers.
23 But indeed Shem and Japheth placed a cloak upon their shoulders, and, proceeding backward, covered their father’s pudenda; and their faces were turned away, and they did not see their father’s virile parts. 24 But Noah, waking from the wine, when he had learned what his younger son had done to him, 25 said: [Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be to his brothers.] 26 And he said: [Blessed be the Lord, the God of Shem; let Canaan be his servant. 27 May God enlarge Japheth, and let him dwell in the tabernacles of Shem, and let Canaan be his servant.] 28 Now Noah lived after the deluge three hundred and fifty years.
[10] 1 Hæ sunt generationes filiorum Noë, Sem, Cham et Japheth: natique sunt eis filii post diluvium. 2 Filii Japheth: Gomer, et Magog, et Madai, et Javan, et Thubal, et Mosoch, et Thiras. 3 Porro filii Gomer: Ascenez et Riphath et Thogorma.
[10] 1 These are the generations of the sons of Noah, Shem, Ham and Japheth: and sons were born to them after the deluge. 2 The sons of Japheth: Gomer, and Magog, and Madai, and Javan, and Tubal, and Meshech, and Thiras. 3 And the sons of Gomer: Ashkenaz and Riphath and Togarmah.
the Hittite, 16 and the Jebusite, and the Amorite, the Girgashite, 17 the Hivite, and the Arkite: the Sinite, 18 and the Aradian, the Zemarite, and the Hamathite: and after these, the peoples of the Canaanites were disseminated. 19 And the boundaries of Canaan were, for those coming from Sidon, to Gerar as far as Gaza, until you enter Sodom and Gomorrah, and Admah, and Zeboiim as far as Lasha. 20 These are the sons of Ham in their kindreds, and tongues, and generations, in their lands and in their nations.
24 But indeed Arphaxad begot Sale, from whom Heber arose. 25 And two sons were born to Heber: the name of the one was Phaleg, because in his days the earth was divided: and the name of his brother was Jectan. 26 And Jectan begot Elmodad, and Saleph, and Asarmoth, Jare, 27 and Aduram, and Uzal, and Decla, 28 and Ebal, and Abimaël, Saba, 29 and Ophir, and Hevila, and Jobab: all these, the sons of Jectan.
[11] 1 Erat autem terra labii unius, et sermonum eorumdem.
[11] 1 Now the earth was of one lip, and of the same speech.
[12] 1 Dixit autem Dominus ad Abram: Egredere de terra tua, et de cognatione tua, et de domo patris tui, et veni in terram quam monstrabo tibi.
[12] 1 But the Lord said to Abram: Go forth from your land, and from your kindred, and from your father's house, and come into the land which I will show to you.
[13] 1 Ascendit ergo Abram de Aegypto, ipse et uxor eius, et omnia quae habebat, et Lot cum eo, ad australem plagam.
[13] 1 Therefore Abram went up from Egypt, he and his wife, and all that he had, and Lot with him, to the southern quarter.
[14] 1 Factum est autem in illo tempore, ut Amraphel rex Senaar, et Arioch rex Ponti, et Chodorlahomor rex Elamitarum, et Thadal rex Gentium
[14] 1 Now it came to pass at that time that Amraphel, king of Shinar, and Arioch, king of Pontus, and Chedorlaomer, king of the Elamites, and Tidal, king of the Nations,
[15] 1 His itaque transactis, factus est sermo Domini ad Abram per visionem dicens: Noli timere, Abram: ego protector tuus sum, et merces tua magna nimis.
[15] 1 After these things, the word of the Lord came to Abram through a vision, saying: Do not fear, Abram: I am your protector, and your reward is very great.
[16] 1 Igitur Sarai, uxor Abram, non genuerat liberos: sed habens ancillam aegyptiam nomine Agar,
[16] 1 Therefore Sarai, the wife of Abram, had not borne children: but, having an Egyptian handmaid by the name Hagar,
[17] 1 Postquam vero nonaginta et novem annorum esse coeperat, apparuit ei Dominus, dixitque ad eum: Ego Deus omnipotens: ambula coram me, et esto perfectus.
[17] 1 After he had begun to be ninety-nine years old, the Lord appeared to him, and said to him: I am God Omnipotent: walk before me, and be perfect.
[18] 1 Apparuit autem ei Dominus in convalle Mambre sedenti in ostio tabernaculi sui in ipso fervore diei. 2 Cumque elevasset oculos, apparuerunt ei tres viri stantes prope eum: quos cum vidisset, cucurrit in occursum eorum de ostio tabernaculi, et adoravit in terram. 3 Et dixit: Domine, si inveni gratiam in oculis tuis, ne transeas servum tuum: 4 sed afferam pauxillum aquæ, et lavate pedes vestros, et requiescite sub arbore.
[18] 1 But the Lord appeared to him in the valley of Mamre, as he was sitting in the door of his tabernacle in the very heat of the day. 2 And when he had lifted up his eyes, three men appeared to him, standing near him; and when he saw them, he ran to meet them from the door of the tabernacle, and prostrated himself to the ground. 3 And he said: Lord, if I have found grace in your eyes, do not pass by your servant: 4 but let me bring a little water, and wash your feet, and rest under the tree.
5 And I will set forth a morsel of bread, and comfort your hearts: afterward you shall pass on: for for this cause you have turned aside to your servant. And they said: Do as you have spoken. 6 Abraham hastened into the tent to Sarah, and said to her: Make haste, mix three seahs of fine semolina flour, and make loaves baked under the ashes. 7 But he himself ran to the herd, and took from there a very tender and choice calf, and gave it to the lad: who hastened and cooked it.
8 He also took butter and milk, and the calf which he had cooked, and set it before them: but he himself stood near them under the tree. 9 And when they had eaten, they said to him: Where is Sara your wife ? He replied: Behold, she is in the tent. 10 And he said to him: Returning I will come to you at this time, with life as companion, and Sara your wife will have a son.
On hearing this, Sarah laughed behind the door of the tent. 11 Now they were both old, advanced in age, and the things of women had ceased to happen for Sarah. 12 And she laughed secretly, saying: After I have grown old, and my lord is a little old man, shall I apply myself to pleasure? 13 But the Lord said to Abraham: Why did Sarah laugh, saying: Am I truly to give birth, I an old woman? 14 Is anything difficult for God? According to the appointed time I will return to you at this same time, with life as companion, and Sarah will have a son.
17 And the Lord said: Shall I be able to hide from Abraham what I am about to do: 18 since he is going to become a great and most robust nation, and all the nations of the earth are to be blessed in him ? 19 For I know that he will command his sons and his household after him to guard the way of the Lord and to do judgment and justice: so that the Lord may bring upon Abraham all that he has spoken to him. 20 Therefore the Lord said: The clamor of Sodom and Gomorrah has been multiplied, and their sin has been aggravated exceedingly. 21 I will descend, and I will see whether they have fulfilled, in deed, the clamor that has come to me; or whether it is not so, that I may know.
22 And they turned themselves from there, and went away to Sodom; but Abraham still stood before the Lord. 23 And approaching he said: Will you destroy the just with the impious? 24 if there are fifty just in the city, will they perish together? and will you not spare that place for the sake of the fifty just, if they are in it? 25 Far be it from you to do this thing, and to slay the just with the impious, and so the just be as the impious; this is not yours: you who judge all the earth, by no means will you do this judgment. 26 And the Lord said to him: If I find in Sodom fifty just in the midst of the city, I will spare the whole place because of them.
27 And Abraham, answering, said: Since I have once begun, I will speak to my Lord, though I am dust and ashes. 28 What if five be lacking from the fifty just ? Will you destroy, on account of forty-five, the whole city ? And he said: I will not destroy, if I find there forty-five. 29 And again he spoke to him: But if forty are found there, what will you do ? He said: I will not smite on account of forty.
30 Do not, I beg, he said, be indignant, Lord, if I speak: what if thirty should be found there? He answered: I will not do it, if I find thirty there. 31 Since once, he said, I have begun, I will speak to my Lord: what if twenty should be found there? He said: I will not destroy on account of twenty. 32 I beseech, he said, do not be angry, Lord, if I speak yet once more: what if ten should be found there? And he said: I will not destroy on account of ten.
[19] 1 Veneruntque duo angeli Sodomam vespere, et sedente Lot in foribus civitatis. Qui cum vidisset eos, surrexit, et ivit obviam eis: adoravitque pronus in terram, 2 et dixit: Obsecro, domini, declinate in domum pueri vestri, et manete ibi: lavate pedes vestros, et mane proficiscemini in viam vestram. Qui dixerunt: Minime, sed in platea manebimus.
[19] 1 And two angels came to Sodom toward evening, and Lot was sitting at the gate of the city. Who, when he had seen them, rose and went to meet them, and bowed prostrate to the ground, 2 and said: I beg, my lords, turn aside into the house of your servant, and stay there: wash your feet, and in the morning you shall set out on your way. They said: By no means, but we will stay in the open square.
3 He pressed them exceedingly to turn aside to him; and when they had entered his house he made a banquet, and baked unleavened cakes, and they ate. 4 But before they went to lie down, the men of the city surrounded the house, from boy to old man, all the people together. 5 And they called Lot, and said to him: Where are the men who entered to you by night ? bring them out here, that we may know them.
6 Lot went out to them, closing the door behind him, and said: 7 Do not, I beg, my brothers, do not do this evil. 8 I have two daughters who have not yet known a man: I will lead them out to you, and abuse them as it shall please you, only do no evil to these men, because they have entered under the shadow of my roof. 9 But they said: Recede there.
And again: You have come in, they say, as an alien; is it to judge? therefore you yourself rather than these we will afflict. And they pressed hard upon Lot with violence most vehemently; and now it was near that they would break down the doors. 10 And behold, the men stretched out their hand, and brought Lot in to themselves, and shut the door: 11 and those who were outside they struck with blindness from the least to the greatest, so that they could not find the door.
12 But they said to Lot: Have you here anyone of yours? a son-in-law, or sons, or daughters—everyone who is yours—lead out from this city: 13 for we will destroy this place, because their clamor has increased before the Lord, who has sent us to destroy them. 14 Therefore Lot went out, spoke to his sons-in-law who were about to take his daughters, and said: Rise, go out from this place: because the Lord will destroy this city. And he seemed to them to be speaking as if jesting.
15 And when it was morning, the angels were urging him, saying: Rise, take your wife and the two daughters whom you have, lest you too perish together in the crime of the city. 16 While he was lingering, they took hold of his hand, and the hand of his wife, and of his two daughters, because the Lord spared him. 17 And they led him out, and set him outside the city; and there they spoke to him, saying: Save your soul; do not look back behind you, nor stand in any region round about; but on the mountain make yourself safe, lest you too perish at the same time.
18 And Lot said to them: I beg, my lord, 19 because your servant has found favor before you, and you have magnified your mercy which you have done with me, so that you might save my soul, and I cannot be saved in the mountain, lest perhaps some evil overtake me and I die: 20 there is this city near, to which I can flee, small, and I shall be saved in it: is it not modest in size, and my soul will live? 21 And he said to him: Behold, even in this I have accepted your prayers, that I not subvert the city of which you have spoken. 22 Hasten, and save yourself there: for I shall not be able to do anything until you enter there. Therefore the name of that city was called Segor. 23 The sun came forth upon the land, and Lot entered Segor.
24 Therefore the Lord rained upon Sodom and Gomorrah sulfur and fire from the Lord out of heaven: 25 and he subverted these cities, and all the region around, all the inhabitants of the cities, and all the green things of the land. 26 And his wife, looking back after him, was turned into a statue of salt. 27 But Abraham, rising early in the morning, where he had previously stood with the Lord, 28 looked toward Sodom and Gomorrah, and the whole land of that region: and he saw ash ascending from the earth like the smoke of a furnace.
29 For when God was subverting the cities of that region, he remembered Abraham, and liberated Lot from the subversion of the cities in which he had dwelt. 30 And Lot ascended from Segor, and stayed on the mountain, and his two daughters also with him (for he had feared to remain in Segor) and he stayed in a cave, he and his two daughters with him. 31 And the elder said to the younger: Our father is old, and none of the men remains in the land who can come in to us according to the custom of the whole earth. 32 Come, let us inebriate him with wine, and let us sleep with him, that we may be able to preserve seed from our father. 33 Therefore they gave their father to drink wine that night.
And the elder entered, and slept with her father; but he did not perceive, neither when the daughter lay down nor when she rose. 34 And on the next day the elder also said to the younger: Behold, I slept yesterday with my father; let us give him to drink wine also this night, and you shall sleep with him, that we may preserve seed from our father. 35 They also gave their father to drink wine that night, and the younger daughter entered and slept with him: and not even then did he perceive when she had lain with him, or when she had risen.
36 Therefore the two daughters of Lot conceived by their father. 37 And the elder bore a son, and called his name Moab: he is the father of the Moabites up to the present day. 38 The younger also bore a son, and called his name Ammon, that is, Son of my people: he is the father of the Ammonites even to this day.
[20] 1 Profectus inde Abraham in terram australem, habitavit inter Cades et Sur: et peregrinatus est in Geraris. 2 Dixitque de Sara uxore suo: Soror mea est. Misit ergo Abimelech rex Geraræ, et tulit eam.
[20] 1 Having set out thence, Abraham went into the southern land, he dwelt between Kadesh and Shur; and he sojourned in Gerar. 2 And he said of Sarah his wife: She is my sister. Therefore Abimelech, king of Gerar, sent and took her.
3 But God came to Abimelech through a dream by night, and said to him: Behold, you will die on account of the woman whom you have taken: for she has a husband. 4 But Abimelech had not touched her, and said: Lord, will you slay a nation ignorant and just ? 5 Did he not himself say to me: She is my sister: and she herself said: He is my brother ? In the simplicity of my heart, and in the purity of my hands, I have done this. 6 And God said to him: And I also know that you have done this with a simple heart: and therefore I have kept you that you might not sin against me, and I did not permit you to touch her.
7 Now therefore return the wife to her husband, for he is a prophet: and he will pray for you, and you will live: but if you are unwilling to return her, know that by death you will die, you and all that are yours. 8 And immediately in the night, rising up, Abimelech called all his servants: and he spoke all these words in their ears, and all the men were very much afraid. 9 But Abimelech also called Abraham, and said to him: What have you done to us ? what have we sinned against you, that you have brought upon me and upon my kingdom a great sin ? the things which you ought not to have done, you have done to us.
10 And again remonstrating, he said: What did you see, that you did this ? 11 Abraham answered: I thought to myself, saying: Perhaps there is not the fear of God in this place; and they will kill me on account of my wife: 12 moreover, and truly, she is my sister, the daughter of my father, and not the daughter of my mother, and I took her as a wife. 13 But after God led me out from my father’s house, I said to her: This mercy you will do with me: in every place to which we shall enter, you will say that I am your brother. 14 Therefore Abimelech took sheep and oxen, and male and female servants, and gave them to Abraham; and he restored to him Sarah his wife, 15 and said: The land is before you; wherever it pleases you, dwell.
16 But to Sarah he said: Behold, I have given your brother a thousand pieces of silver; this will be for you a covering of the eyes before all who are with you, and wherever you go: and remember that you were discovered. 17 And as Abraham was praying, God healed Abimelech and his wife and his handmaids, and they gave birth: 18 for the Lord had closed every womb of the house of Abimelech because of Sarah, the wife of Abraham.
[21] 1 Visitavit autem Dominus Saram, sicut promiserat: et implevit quæ locutus est. 2 Concepitque et peperit filium in senectute sua, tempore quo prædixerat ei Deus. 3 Vocavitque Abraham nomen filii sui, quem genuit ei Sara, Isaac: 4 et circumcidit eum octavo die, sicut præceperat ei Deus, 5 cum centum esset annorum: hac quippe ætate patris, natus est Isaac.
[21] 1 But the Lord visited Sarah, just as he had promised; and he fulfilled what he had spoken. 2 And she conceived and bore a son in her old age, at the time when God had foretold to her. 3 And Abraham called the name of his son, whom Sarah bore to him, Isaac: 4 and he circumcised him on the eighth day, as God had commanded him, 5 when he was a hundred years old: for at this age of the father, Isaac was born.
6 And Sarah said: God has made laughter for me: whoever shall hear will laugh with me. 7 And again she said: Who would have believed for Abraham that Sarah would nurse a son, whom she has borne to him now that he is old ? 8 Therefore the boy grew, and was weaned: and Abraham made a great banquet on the day of his weaning. 9 And when Sarah had seen the son of Hagar the Egyptian playing with Isaac her son, she said to Abraham: 10 Cast out this handmaid and her son: for the son of the handmaid shall not be heir with my son Isaac.
11 Abraham took this hard on account of his son. 12 And God said to him: Let it not seem harsh to you concerning the boy and concerning your handmaid; everything that Sarah says to you, listen to her voice; for in Isaac shall your seed be called. 13 But even the son of the handmaid I will make into a great nation, because he is your seed.
14 Abraham therefore rose in the morning, and taking bread and a skin of water, he placed it upon her shoulder, and he handed over the boy, and sent her away. And when she had gone, she wandered in the solitude of Bersabee. 15 And when the water in the skin was consumed, she cast the boy beneath one of the trees that were there.
16 And she went, and sat down opposite at a distance as far as a bow can shoot; for she said: I will not see the boy dying; and sitting over against, she lifted up her voice and wept. 17 But God hearkened to the voice of the boy; and the angel of God called to Agar from heaven, saying: What are you doing, Agar ? do not fear: for God has hearkened to the voice of the boy from the place where he is. 18 Arise, take up the boy, and hold his hand: for I will make him into a great nation.
19 And God opened her eyes: and, seeing a well of water, she went and filled the skin, and gave the boy to drink. 20 And God was with him: and he grew, and tarried in the wilderness, and became a young sagittary (archer). 21 And he dwelt in the desert of Paran, and his mother took a wife for him from the land of Egypt.
22 At that same time Abimelech, and Phicol the chief of his army, said to Abraham: God is with you in all that you do. 23 Swear therefore by God, that you will not harm me, nor my posterity, nor my stock; but according to the mercy which I have done to you, you will do to me, and to the land in which you have sojourned as a stranger. 24 And Abraham said: I will swear.
25 And he reproached Abimelech on account of the well of water which his servants had carried off by force. 26 And Abimelech answered: I did not know who did this thing: but you also did not point it out to me, and I did not hear of it except today. 27 Therefore Abraham took sheep and oxen, and gave them to Abimelech: and the two struck a covenant.
28 And Abraham set seven ewe-lambs of the flock apart. 29 And Abimelech said to him: What do these seven ewe-lambs mean, which you have made to stand apart ? 30 But he said: You shall take the seven ewe-lambs from my hand: that they may be for me as a testimony, that I dug this well. 31 Therefore that place was called Beersheba: because there both swore.
[22] 1 Quæ postquam gesta sunt, tentavit Deus Abraham, et dixit ad eum: Abraham, Abraham. At ille respondit: Adsum. 2 Ait illi: Tolle filium tuum unigenitum, quem diligis, Isaac, et vade in terram visionis, atque ibi offeres eum in holocaustum super unum montium quem monstravero tibi.
[22] 1 After these things were done, God tested Abraham, and said to him: Abraham, Abraham. And he replied: Here I am. 2 He said to him: Take your son, your only-begotten, whom you love, Isaac, and go into the land of vision, and there you will offer him in holocaust upon one of the mountains which I will show you.
3 Therefore Abraham, rising at night, saddled his ass, leading with him two youths, and Isaac his son: and when he had cut the wood for the holocaust, he went to the place which God had commanded him. 4 But on the third day, with his eyes lifted, he saw the place afar off: 5 and he said to his boys: Wait here with the ass: I and the boy, hastening thither as far as that place, after we have adored, we will return to you. 6 He also took the wood of the holocaust, and laid it upon Isaac his son: but he himself was carrying in his hands the fire and the sword.
And as the two were going on together, 7 Isaac said to his father: My father. And he replied: What do you wish, my son ? Behold, he said, the fire and the wood: where is the victim of the holocaust ? 8 But Abraham said: God will provide himself a victim for the holocaust, my son. So they went on together. 9 And they came to the place which God had shown him, where he built an altar, and arranged the wood on top; and when he had bound Isaac his son, he set him upon the altar over the pile of wood. 10 And he stretched out his hand, and seized the sword, to immolate his son.
11 And behold, an angel of the Lord from heaven cried out, saying: Abraham, Abraham. He answered: Here I am. 12 And he said to him: Do not stretch out your hand against the boy, nor do anything to him: now I have known that you fear God, and you have not spared your only-begotten son for my sake. 13 And Abraham lifted his eyes, and he saw behind him a ram caught by its horns in the thicket, which, taking up, he offered as a holocaust in place of his son.
14 And he called the name of that place, The Lord sees. Whence to this day it is said: On the mountain the Lord will see. 15 And the angel of the Lord called Abraham a second time from heaven, saying: 16 By myself I have sworn, says the Lord: because you have done this thing, and have not spared your only-begotten son on account of me: 17 I will bless you, and I will multiply your seed like the stars of heaven, and like the sand which is on the shore of the sea: your seed will possess the gates of its enemies, 18 and in your seed all the nations of the earth will be blessed, because you obeyed my voice. 19 And Abraham returned to his servants, and they went together to Beersheba, and he dwelt there.
20 With these things thus done, it was announced to Abraham that Melcha likewise had borne sons to Nachor his brother: 21 Hus the firstborn, and Buz his brother, and Camuel the father of the Syrians, 22 and Cased, and Azau, and Pheldas also and Jedlaph, 23 and Bathuel, from whom Rebecca was born: these eight Melcha bore, to Nachor, the brother of Abraham. 24 But his concubine, by name Roma, gave birth to Tabee, and Gaham, and Thahas, and Maacha.
[23] 1 Vixit autem Sara centum viginti septem annis. 2 Et mortua est in civitate Arbee, quæ est Hebron, in terra Chanaan: venitque Abraham ut plangeret et fleret eam. 3 Cumque surrexisset ab officio funeris, locutus est ad filios Heth, dicens: 4 Advena sum et peregrinus apud vos: date mihi jus sepulchri vobiscum, ut sepeliam mortuum meum.
[23] 1 Now Sarah lived one hundred and twenty-seven years. 2 And she died in the city of Arbee, which is Hebron, in the land of Canaan; and Abraham came to lament and to weep for her. 3 And when he had risen from the duty of the funeral, he spoke to the sons of Heth, saying: 4 I am a stranger and a pilgrim among you: give me the right of a sepulcher with you, that I may bury my dead.
5 The sons of Heth answered, saying: 6 Hear us, lord: you are a prince of God among us; in our chosen sepulchres bury your dead, and no one will be able to forbid you from burying your dead in his monument. 7 Abraham rose and bowed down to the people of the land, namely the sons of Heth; 8 and he said to them: If it pleases your soul that I bury my dead, hear me, and intercede for me with Ephron the son of Seor: 9 that he may give me the double cave which he has at the far end of his field; let him hand it over to me for a worthy price of money, before you, as a possession for a sepulchre. 10 Now Ephron was dwelling in the midst of the sons of Heth.
And Ephron answered to Abraham, with all listening who were entering the gate of that city, saying: 11 By no means let it be so, my lord, but you rather listen to what I say. I grant the field to you, and the cave that is in it, in the presence of the sons of my people; bury your dead. 12 Abraham adored before the people of the land. 13 And he spoke to Ephron, the crowd standing around: I beg that you hear me: I will give money for the field: receive it, and thus I will bury my dead in it. 14 And Ephron answered: 15 My lord, hear me: the land which you ask is worth 400 shekels of silver: that is the price between me and you: but what is that ? bury your dead.
16 When Abraham had heard this, he weighed out the money that Ephron had demanded, with the sons of Heth listening, four hundred shekels of silver of approved public coinage. 17 And the field once Ephron’s was confirmed, in which there was a double cave, facing Mamre, both the field itself and the cave, and all its trees within all its boundaries all around, 18 to Abraham for a possession, with the sons of Heth seeing, and all who were entering the gate of that city. 19 And thus Abraham buried Sarah his wife in the double cave of the field, which faced Mamre. This is Hebron in the land of Canaan.
[24] 1 Erat autem Abraham senex, dierumque multorum: et Dominus in cunctis benedixerat ei. 2 Dixitque ad servum seniorem domus suæ, qui præerat omnibus quæ habebat: Pone manum tuam subter femur meum, 3 ut adjurem te per Dominum Deum cæli et terræ, ut non accipias uxorem filio meo de filiabus Chananæorum, inter quos habito: 4 sed ad terram et cognationem meam proficiscaris et inde accipias uxorem filio meo Isaac. 5 Respondit servus: Si noluerit mulier venire mecum in terram hanc, numquid reducere debeo filium tuum ad locum, de quo egressus es ? 6 Dixitque Abraham: Cave nequando reducas filium meum illuc. 7 Dominus Deus cæli, qui tulit me de domo patris mei, et de terra nativitatis meæ, qui locutus est mihi, et juravit mihi, dicens: Semini tuo dabo terram hanc: ipse mittet angelum suum coram te, et accipies inde uxorem filio meo: 8 sin autem mulier noluerit sequi te, non teneberis juramento: filium meum tantum ne reducas illuc.
[24] 1 Now Abraham was aged, and of many days; and the Lord had blessed him in all things. 2 And he said to the senior servant of his house, who presided over all that he had: Put your hand under my thigh, 3 that I may adjure you by the Lord God of heaven and earth, that you will not take a wife for my son from the daughters of the Canaanites among whom I dwell, 4 but that you will set out to my land and my kindred, and from there take a wife for my son Isaac. 5 The servant answered: If the woman is unwilling to come with me to this land, must I bring back your son to the place from which you came out? 6 And Abraham said: Beware lest ever you bring my son back there. 7 The Lord God of heaven, who took me from my father’s house and from the land of my nativity, who spoke to me and swore to me, saying: To your seed I will give this land—he himself will send his angel before you, and you shall take from there a wife for my son. 8 But if the woman is unwilling to follow you, you shall not be held by the oath; only do not bring my son back there.
9 Therefore the servant placed his hand under the thigh of his lord Abraham, and swore to him upon this matter. 10 And he took ten camels from the herd of his lord, and went off, carrying with him of all his goods, and having set out he went on to Mesopotamia, to the city of Nahor. 11 And when he had made the camels kneel down outside the town by a well of water in the evening, at the time when women are accustomed to go out to draw water, he said: 12 Lord God of my lord Abraham, meet me, I beseech, today, and show mercy with my lord Abraham.
13 Behold, I stand near the spring of water, and the daughters of the inhabitants of this city will go out to draw water. 14 Therefore the girl to whom I shall say: Incline your water-jar that I may drink: and she shall answer: Drink, indeed I will also give your camels drink: she is the one whom you have prepared for your servant Isaac; and by this I shall understand that you have done mercy with my lord. 15 Not yet had he completed the words within himself, and behold Rebecca was coming out, daughter of Bathuel, the son of Melcha, the wife of Nachor, Abraham’s brother, having a water-jar on her shoulder: 16 a girl very comely, and a most beautiful virgin, and unknown to man: she had gone down to the spring, and had filled the water-jar, and was returning.
17 And the servant ran up to meet her, and said: Give me a little water to drink from your jar. 18 She replied: Drink, my lord; and quickly she set down the jar upon her forearm, and gave him a drink. 19 And when he had drunk, she added: Indeed, I will also draw water for your camels, until they all drink.
20 And pouring out the hydria into the channels, she ran back to the well to draw water; and having drawn it, she gave to all the camels. 21 But he himself was contemplating her in silence, wishing to know whether the Lord had made his journey prosperous or not. 22 But after the camels had drunk, the man brought forth golden earrings, weighing two shekels, and bracelets as many, of the weight of ten shekels.
23 And he said to her: Whose daughter are you ? tell me, is there in your father’s house a place for lodging ? 24 Who replied: I am the daughter of Bathuel, the son of Melcha, whom she bore to him, Nachor. 25 And she added, saying: There is also very much chaff-straw and hay with us, and a spacious place for lodging. 26 The man bowed himself and worshiped the Lord, 27 saying: Blessed be the Lord, the God of my master Abraham, who has not withdrawn his mercy and his truth from my master, and has led me by a straight way into the house of my master’s brother.
28 Then the girl ran, and announced in her mother’s house all that she had heard. 29 Now Rebecca had a brother named Laban, who, in haste, went out to the man where the fountain was. 30 And when he had seen the earrings and the bracelets on his sister’s hands, and had heard all the words of her relating: ‘Thus has the man spoken to me:’ he came to the man who was standing next to the camels, and near the fountain of water: 31 and he said to him: Enter, blessed of the Lord: why do you stand outside ? I have prepared the house, and a place for the camels.
34 But he: I am, he said, the servant of Abraham: 35 and the Lord has blessed my lord greatly, and he has been magnified: and he has given him sheep and oxen, silver and gold, male slaves and maidservants, camels and asses. 36 And Sarah, the wife of my master, has borne a son to my master in her old age, and he has given to him all that he had. 37 And my master adjured me, saying: You shall not take a wife for my son from the daughters of the Canaanites, in whose land I dwell: 38 but you shall go to the house of my father, and from my kindred you shall take a wife for my son.
39 But I indeed replied to my lord: What if the woman is not willing to come with me ? 40 The Lord, he said, in whose sight I walk, will send his angel with you, and will direct your way: and you shall take a wife for my son from my kindred, and from the house of my father. 41 You shall be innocent from my malediction, when you come to my kinsmen, and they do not give her to you. 42 I came therefore today to the spring of water, and I said: Lord God of my lord Abraham, if you have directed my way, in which I now walk, 43 behold, I stand beside the spring of water, and the virgin who will come out to draw water shall hear from me: Give me a very little water to drink from your hydria: 44 and if she shall say to me: And you drink, and I will draw for your camels; she is the woman whom the Lord has prepared for the son of my lord.
45 And while I was turning these things silently with myself, Rebecca appeared coming with a water-jar, which she was carrying on her shoulder: and she went down to the fountain and drew water. And I say to her: Give me a little to drink. 46 Who, hastening, set down the jar from her shoulder, and said to me: You too drink, and I will give drink to your camels.
48 And prone I adored the Lord, blessing the Lord God of my lord Abraham, who led me by a straight way, that I might take the daughter of my lord’s brother for his son. 49 Wherefore, if you are doing mercy and truth with my lord, indicate it to me; but if something else pleases you, say this to me also, that I may go to the right or to the left. 50 And Laban and Bethuel answered: From the Lord the word has gone forth; we cannot speak with you anything other beyond his will.
51 Behold, Rebecca is before you; take her, and set out, and let her be the wife of your lord’s son, just as the Lord has spoken. 52 When Abraham’s servant heard this, falling prostrate he adored the Lord upon the ground. 53 And producing silver and gold vessels and garments, he gave them to Rebecca as a gift; to her brothers also and to her mother he offered gifts.
59 They therefore sent her away, and her nurse, and Abraham’s servant, and his companions, 60 invoking prosperity upon their sister, and saying: You are our sister, may you grow into a thousand thousands, and may your seed possess the gates of their enemies. 61 Accordingly Rebecca and her maidens, having mounted camels, followed the man: who in haste was returning to his master. 62 But at that time Isaac was walking along the way which leads to the well, whose name is of the Living and Seeing One; for he was dwelling in the southern land: 63 and he had gone out to meditate in the field, with the day now inclined; and when he had lifted up his eyes, he saw camels coming from afar.
64 Rebecca also, with Isaac having been seen, descended from the camel, 65 and said to the boy: Who is that man who comes through the field to meet us ? And he said to her: He is my lord. Then she, quickly lifting her veil, covered herself. 66 But the servant narrated to Isaac all the things he had done. 67 And he introduced her into the tabernacle of Sarah his mother, and took her as wife: and he loved her so much that he tempered the grief which had befallen him from his mother’s death.
[25] 1 Abraham vero aliam duxit uxorem nomine Ceturam: 2 quæ peperit ei Zamran et Jecsan, et Madan, et Madian, et Jesboc, et Sue. 3 Jecsan quoque genuit Saba et Dadan. Filii Dadan fuerunt Assurim, et Latusim, et Loomin.
[25] 1 But Abraham indeed took another wife by the name Keturah: 2 who bore to him Zimran and Jokshan, and Medan, and Midian, and Ishbak, and Shuah. 3 And Jokshan likewise begot Sheba and Dedan. The sons of Dedan were the Asshurim, and the Letushim, and the Leummim.
4 But indeed from Midian were born Epha, and Opher, and Enoch, and Abida, and Eldaa: all these were the sons of Keturah. 5 And Abraham gave all that he possessed to Isaac: 6 but to the sons of the concubines he lavished gifts, and he separated them from Isaac his son, while he himself was still living, toward the eastern quarter. 7 Now the days of Abraham’s life were 175 years. 8 And, failing, he died in good old age, advanced in age and full of days: and he was gathered to his people.
9 And Isaac and Ishmael, his sons, buried him in the double cave, which is situated in the field of Ephron, son of Seor the Hittite, over against Mamre, 10 which he had bought from the sons of Heth: there he himself was buried, and Sarah his wife. 11 And after his death God blessed Isaac his son, who was dwelling near the well by the name "of the Living and the Seeing." 12 These are the generations of Ishmael, son of Abraham, whom Hagar the Egyptian, the handmaid of Sarah, bore to him: and 13 these are the names of his sons in their appellations and their generations.
The firstborn of Ishmael, Nabaioth, then Cedar, and Adbeel, and Mabsam, 14 Masma also, and Duma, and Massa, 15 Hadar, and Thema, and Jethur, and Naphis, and Cedma. 16 These are the sons of Ishmael: and these are their names by their forts and towns, twelve princes of their tribes. 17 And the years of Ishmael’s life were 137, and, failing, he died, and was added to his people.
18 He dwelt from Havilah as far as Shur, which faces Egypt as you enter Assyria; in the presence of all his brothers he died. 19 These also are the generations of Isaac, son of Abraham: Abraham begot Isaac: 20 who, when he was forty years old, took as wife Rebecca, the daughter of Bethuel the Syrian of Mesopotamia, sister of Laban. 21 And Isaac entreated the Lord on behalf of his wife, because she was barren; and he heard him, and granted conception to Rebecca. 22 But the little ones were clashing in her womb; and she said: If it was going to be thus for me, what need was there to conceive ? and she went to consult the Lord.
23 He, answering, said:
Two nations are in your womb,
and two peoples from your belly shall be divided,
and one people shall prevail over the other people,
and the greater shall serve the lesser. 24 Now the time for giving birth had come, and behold, twins were found in her womb. 25 He who came out first was red, and all over shaggy like a pelt; and his name was called Esau.
Immediately the other, coming out, was holding his brother’s heel with his hand; and therefore he called him Jacob. 26 Isaac was sixty years old when the little ones were born to him. 27 When they had grown up, Esau became a man skilled in hunting, and a farmer; but Jacob, a simple man, dwelt in tents.
[26] Orta autem fame super terram post eam sterilitatem, quæ acciderat in diebus Abraham, abiit Isaac ad Abimelech regem Palæstinorum in Gerara. 2 Apparuitque ei Dominus, et ait: Ne descendas in Ægyptum, sed quiesce in terra quam dixero tibi, 3 et peregrinare in ea: eroque tecum, et benedicam tibi: tibi enim et semini tuo dabo universas regiones has, complens juramentum quod spopondi Abraham patri tuo. 4 Et multiplicabo semen tuum sicut stellas cæli: daboque posteris tuis universas regiones has: et benedicentur in semine tuo omnes gentes terræ, 5 eo quod obedierit Abraham voci meæ, et custodierit præcepta et mandata mea, et cæremonias legesque servaverit.
[26] But when a famine had arisen upon the land after that sterility which had happened in the days of Abraham, Isaac went to Abimelech, king of the Philistines, in Gerar. 2 And the Lord appeared to him and said: Do not go down into Egypt, but rest in the land which I shall tell you, 3 and sojourn in it: and I will be with you and will bless you: for to you and to your seed I will give all these regions, fulfilling the oath which I pledged to Abraham your father. 4 And I will multiply your seed like the stars of heaven: and I will give to your posterity all these regions: and in your seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed, 5 because Abraham obeyed my voice, and kept my precepts and my commandments, and has observed the ceremonies and the laws.
6 So Isaac stayed in Gerar. 7 And when he was asked by the men of that place about his wife, he answered: She is my sister; for he had feared to confess that she was joined to him in marriage, thinking lest perhaps they might kill him on account of her beauty. 8 And when many days had passed, and he was staying there, Abimelech, king of the Philistines, looking out through a window, saw him sporting with Rebecca his wife.
9 And, with him summoned, he said: It is evident that she is your wife: why did you lie that she was your sister? He replied: I feared lest I might die on account of her. 10 And Abimelech said: Why have you imposed upon us? Someone from the people could have lain with your wife, and you would have brought upon us a great sin. And he commanded all the people, saying: 11 Whoever touches this man’s wife shall surely be put to death.
12 But Isaac sowed in that land, and in that very year he found a hundredfold; and the Lord blessed him. 13 And the man was enriched, and went on advancing and increasing, until he had become exceedingly great: 14 he also had possessions of sheep and of cattle, and very many household-servants. Because of this, the Palestinians, envying him, 15 blocked up all the wells which the servants of his father Abraham had dug at that time, filling them with earth: 16 to such an extent that Abimelech himself said to Isaac: Withdraw from us, for you have become far mightier than we.
17 And he, departing so as to come to the torrent of Gerar, dwelt there; 18 again he dug other wells, which the servants of his father Abraham had dug, and which, after he had died, the Philistines had formerly blocked up; and he called them by the same names by which his father had previously called them. 19 And they dug in the torrent-bed, and they found living water. 20 But even there there was a quarrel of the shepherds of Gerar against the shepherds of Isaac, saying: The water is ours; wherefore he called the name of the well, from what had happened, Calumny.
21 Moreover they dug another: and they also wrangled over that one, and he called it Enmities. 22 Having set out from there, he dug another well, over which they did not contend: and so he called its name Latitude, saying: Now the Lord has dilated us, and has made us increase upon the land. 23 And he went up from that place to Bersabee, 24 where the Lord appeared to him in that very night, saying: I am the God of Abraham your father: do not fear, for I am with you: I will bless you, and I will multiply your seed on account of Abraham my servant.
25 Therefore he built there an altar: and, the name of the Lord invoked, he pitched the tabernacle, and he commanded his servants to dig a well. 26 To which place, when there had come from Gerar Abimelech, and Ochozath his friend, and Phicol, the commander of the soldiers, 27 Isaac spoke to them: Why have you come to me, a man whom you hated, and expelled from you ? 28 Who answered: We have seen the Lord to be with you, and therefore we said: Let there be an oath between us, and let us enter into a covenant, 29 that you do not do to us anything of harm, just as we too have touched nothing of yours, nor have we done what would hurt you: but with peace we sent you away, augmented by the blessing of the Lord. 30 Therefore he made for them a banquet, and after food and drink 31 rising early in the morning, they swore to one another mutually: and Isaac dismissed them peaceably to their place.
32 Behold, however, on that very day the servants of Isaac came, announcing to him concerning the well which they had dug, and saying: “We have found water.” 33 Whence he called it Abundance; and the name imposed upon the city is Beersheba, unto the present day. 34 But Esau, forty years old, took wives, Judith the daughter of Beeri the Hittite, and Basemath the daughter of Elon of the same place: 35 who both had offended the mind of Isaac and Rebecca.
[27] 1 Senuit autem Isaac, et caligaverunt oculi ejus, et videre non poterat: vocavitque Esau filium suum majorem, et dixit ei: Fili mi ? Qui respondit: Adsum. 2 Cui pater: Vides, inquit, quod senuerim, et ignorem diem mortis meæ. 3 Sume arma tua, pharetram, et arcum, et egredere foras: cumque venatu aliquid apprehenderis, 4 fac mihi inde pulmentum sicut velle me nosti, et affer ut comedam: et benedicat tibi anima mea antequam moriar. 5 Quod cum audisset Rebecca, et ille abiisset in agrum ut jussionem patris impleret, 6 dixit filio suo Jacob: Audivi patrem tuum loquentem cum Esau fratre tuo, et dicentem ei: 7 Affer mihi de venatione tua, et fac cibos ut comedam, et benedicam tibi coram Domino antequam moriar.
[27] 1 But Isaac grew old, and his eyes grew dim, and he could not see: and he called Esau his elder son, and said to him: My son ? Who answered: I am present. 2 To whom the father: You see, he said, that I have grown old, and I do not know the day of my death. 3 Take your arms, your quiver, and your bow, and go out; and when by hunting you have taken something, 4 make for me from it a stew, as you know that I wish, and bring it that I may eat: and may my soul bless you before I die. 5 When Rebecca had heard this, and he had gone into the field to fulfill his father’s command, 6 she said to her son Jacob: I heard your father speaking with Esau your brother, and saying to him: 7 Bring to me from your hunting, and make foods that I may eat, and I will bless you before the Lord before I die.
8 Now therefore, my son, acquiesce in my counsels: 9 and, going to the flock, bring me two choice kids, that I may make from them dishes for your father, which he gladly eats: 10 which, when you have brought them in, and he has eaten, may he bless you before he dies. 11 To whom he replied: You know that Esau my brother is a hairy man, and I am smooth: 12 if my father handles me and perceives it, I fear lest he think that I have wished to illude him, and I bring upon myself a malediction instead of a benediction. 13 To whom the mother: Let that malediction be upon me, my son, she said: only listen to my voice, and, going, bring what I have said.
14 He went off, and brought it, and gave it to his mother. She prepared the foods, as she knew his father to wish. 15 And with Esau’s very fine garments, which she had with her at home, she clothed him: 16 and the little pelts of the kids she wrapped around his hands, and she covered the bare of his neck: 17 and she gave the stew, and the loaves, which she had cooked, she handed over.
18 When these had been brought in, he said: My father ? And he replied: I hear. Who are you, my son ? 19 And Jacob said: I am your firstborn, Esau: I have done as you commanded me: rise, sit, and eat of my hunting, that your soul may bless me. 20 And Isaac again to his son: How, said he, were you able to find it so quickly, my son ? He replied: It was the will of God that what I wished should quickly occur to me.
21 And Isaac said: Come near here, that I may touch you, my son, and prove whether you are my son Esau or not. 22 He approached his father, and, having felt him, Isaac said: The voice indeed is the voice of Jacob; but the hands, the hands are Esau’s. 23 And he did not recognize him, because the hairy hands had expressed the similitude of the elder.
When this had been drunk, 26 he said to him: Come near to me, and give me a kiss, my son. 27 He came near, and kissed him. And immediately, as he sensed the fragrance of his garments, blessing him, he said:
Behold the odor of my son
like the odor of a full field,
which the Lord has blessed. 28 May God give to you from the dew of heaven
and from the fatness of the earth
an abundance of grain and wine.
29 And let peoples serve you,
and let tribes adore you:
be lord of your brothers,
and let the sons of your mother bow down before you:
whoever shall have cursed you, let him be accursed,
and whoever shall have blessed you, let him be filled with benedictions. 30 Scarcely had Isaac completed the speech, and Jacob having gone out, outside, Esau came, 31 and he brought in to his father cooked foods from the hunt, saying: Rise, my father, and eat from the hunt of your son, that your soul may bless me. 32 And Isaac said to him: Who then are you ? Who replied: I am your firstborn son, Esau.
33 Isaac was terrified with vehement stupor: and, marveling beyond what can be believed, he said: Who then is he who a little while ago brought me the captured game, and I ate of all before you came; and I blessed him, and he shall be blessed ? 34 Hearing his father’s words, Esau roared with a great cry: and, dismayed, he said: Bless me also, my father. 35 Who said: Your brother came fraudulently, and took your blessing. 36 But he subjoined: Rightly is his name called Jacob; for he has supplanted me this second time: my primogeniture he took before, and now a second time he has surreptitiously snatched my blessing. And again to his father: Have you not reserved, he said, a blessing for me as well ? 37 Isaac replied: I have appointed him your lord, and I have subjected all his brothers to his servitude; with grain and wine I have established him: and for you after these things, my son, what more can I do ? 38 To which Esau: Have you only one blessing, father ? bless me also, I beseech you.
And while he was weeping with great wailing, 39 moved, Isaac said to him:
In the fatness of the earth,
and in the dew of heaven from above, 40 shall be your benediction. You will live by the sword, and you will serve your brother:
and the time will come when you will shake off and loosen his yoke from your necks. 41 Therefore Esau ever hated Jacob for the benediction with which his father had blessed him; and he said in his heart: The days of mourning for my father will come, and I will kill Jacob my brother.
42 These things were reported to Rebecca: who, sending and calling Jacob her son, said to him: Behold, Esau your brother threatens to kill you. 43 Now therefore, my son, hear my voice, and rising up flee to Laban my brother in Haran: 44 and you shall dwell with him a few days, until your brother’s fury finds rest, 45 and his indignation ceases, and he forgets the things which you have done to him: afterwards I will send, and I will bring you from there back here: why should I be bereaved of both sons in one day? 46 And Rebecca said to Isaac: I am weary of my life because of the daughters of Heth: if Jacob takes a wife from the stock of this land, I do not wish to live.
[28] 1 Vocavit itaque Isaac Jacob, et benedixit eum, præcepitque ei dicens: Noli accipere conjugem de genere Chanaan: 2 sed vade, et proficiscere in Mesopotamiam Syriæ, ad domum Bathuel patris matris tuæ, et accipe tibi inde uxorem de filiabus Laban avunculi tui. 3 Deus autem omnipotens benedicat tibi, et crescere te faciat, atque multiplicet, ut sis in turbas populorum. 4 Et det tibi benedictiones Abrahæ, et semini tuo post te: ut possideas terram peregrinationis tuæ, quam pollicitus est avo tuo.
[28] 1 So Isaac called Jacob, and blessed him, and he enjoined him, saying: Do not take a wife from the lineage of Canaan: 2 but go, and set out into Mesopotamia of Syria, to the house of Bathuel, the father of your mother, and take for yourself from there a wife from the daughters of Laban your maternal uncle. 3 But may God Almighty bless you, and make you grow, and multiply you, that you may be into throngs of peoples. 4 And may he give to you the blessings of Abraham, and to your seed after you: that you may possess the land of your sojournings, which he promised to your grandfather.
5 And when Isaac had sent him away, he set out and came into Mesopotamia of Syria to Laban, son of Bathuel the Syrian, brother of Rebecca his mother. 6 Now Esau, seeing that his father had blessed Jacob and had sent him into Mesopotamia of Syria to take a wife from there; and that after the blessing he had commanded him, saying: You shall not take a wife from the daughters of Canaan; 7 and that Jacob, obedient to his parents, had gone into Syria; 8 and also perceiving that his father did not willingly regard the daughters of Canaan; 9 went to Ishmael, and, besides those whom he had before, took as wife Mahalath, daughter of Ishmael son of Abraham, sister of Nebaioth. 10 Therefore Jacob, having gone out from Beersheba, was going toward Haran. 11 And when he had come to a certain place, and wished in it to rest after the sun’s setting, he took from the stones that were lying there, and, placing them under his head, slept in the same place.
12 And he saw in a dream a ladder standing upon the earth, and its top touching heaven; and the angels of God were ascending and descending upon it, 13 and the Lord, leaning upon the ladder, saying to him: I am the Lord God of Abraham your father, and the God of Isaac: the land on which you are sleeping I will give to you and to your seed. 14 And your seed shall be as the dust of the earth: you shall spread abroad to the west and east and north and south; and in you and in your seed all the tribes of the earth shall be blessed. 15 And I will be your guardian wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land; nor will I leave you unless I have completed all that I have spoken. 16 And when Jacob had awakened from sleep, he said: Truly the Lord is in this place, and I did not know.
17 And being afraid, he said, How terrible is this place! this is nothing else but the House of God, and the gate of heaven. 18 Therefore Jacob, rising early in the morning, took the stone which he had put under his head, and set it up as a pillar, pouring oil over it. 19 And he called the name of the city Bethel, which previously was called Luz. 20 He also vowed a vow, saying: If God shall be with me, and shall guard me on the way by which I walk, and shall give me bread to eat and clothing to put on, 21 and I shall have returned prosperously to my father’s house: the Lord shall be to me for God, 22 and this stone, which I have set up as a pillar, shall be called the House of God: and of all things which you give to me, I will offer tithes to you.
[29]1 Profectus ergo Jacob venit in terram orientalem. 2 Et vidit puteum in agro, tres quoque greges ovium accubantes juxta eum: nam ex illo adaquabantur pecora, et os ejus grandi lapide claudebatur. 3 Morisque erat ut cunctis ovibus congregatis devolverent lapidem, et refectis gregibus rursum super os putei ponerent.
[29]1 Therefore Jacob set out and came to the land of the east. 2 And he saw a well in the field, and also three flocks of sheep lying beside it: for from it the herds were watered, and its mouth was closed with a great stone. 3 And it was the custom that, when all the sheep had been gathered, they would roll away the stone, and, once the flocks were refreshed, they would again place it upon the mouth of the well.
He is well, they say: and behold Rachel his daughter is coming with her flock. 7 And Jacob said: Much of the day still remains, nor is it time for the flocks to be led back to the folds: give the sheep drink first, and thus lead them back to pasture. 8 Who answered: We cannot, until all the livestock are congregated, and we remove the stone from the mouth of the well, so that we may water the flocks.
9 They were still speaking, and behold, Rachel was coming with her father’s sheep; for she herself was pasturing the flock. 10 When Jacob saw her, and recognized his cousin, and the sheep of Laban his uncle, he removed the stone with which the well was closed. 11 And when the flock had been watered, he kissed her; and lifting up his voice, he wept, 12 and he made known to her that he was her father’s kinsman and the son of Rebecca; but she, hastening, announced it to her father.
13 When he heard that Jacob, his sister’s son, had come, he ran to meet him: and embracing him, and rushing into kisses, he led him into his house. And when the reasons for the journey had been heard, 14 he replied: You are my bone and my flesh. And after the days of one month were fulfilled, 15 he said to him: Is it because you are my brother, you will serve me gratis ? tell what wages you will receive.
19 Laban answered: It is better that I give her to you than to another man: remain with me. 20 Therefore Jacob served for Rachel seven years: and they seemed to him a few days on account of the magnitude of love. 21 And he said to Laban: Give me my wife: for now the time is fulfilled, that I may go in to her. 22 Who, with many throngs of friends summoned to a banquet, held the nuptials.
23 And in the evening he brought in Leah his daughter to him, 24 giving to his daughter a handmaid, by name Zilpah. And when Jacob had gone in to her according to custom, when morning had come he saw Leah: 25 and he said to his father-in-law: What is this that you have wished to do ? did I not serve you for Rachel ? why have you deceived me ? 26 Laban answered: It is not the custom in our place to give the younger into nuptials before the elder. 27 Fulfill the hebdomad of days of this coupling: and this one also I will give to you for the work for which you will serve me seven other years.
28 He acquiesced to the agreement: and, the week having been completed, he took Rachel as wife: 29 to whom her father had given the handmaid Balam. 30 And at length, having obtained the desired nuptials, he preferred the love of the latter to the former, serving under him seven other years. 31 But the Lord, seeing that he was despising Leah, opened her womb, her sister remaining sterile.
32 And she, having conceived, bore a son, and she called his name Reuben, saying: The Lord has seen my humiliation: now my husband will love me. 33 And again she conceived and bore a son, and said: Because the Lord has heard that I am held in contempt, he has even given this one to me; and she called his name Simeon. 34 And she conceived a third time, and bore another son; and she said: Now too my husband will be joined to me, because I have borne him three sons; and therefore she called his name Levi.
[30] 1 Cernens autem Rachel quod infecunda esset, invidit sorori suæ, et ait marito suo: Da mihi liberos, alioquin moriar. 2 Cui iratus respondit Jacob: Num pro Deo ego sum, qui privavit te fructu ventris tui ? 3 At illa: Habeo, inquit, famulam Balam: ingredere ad illam, ut pariat super genua mea, et habeam ex illa filios. 4 Deditque illi Balam in conjugium: quæ, 5 ingresso ad se viro, concepit, et peperit filium.
[30] 1 Seeing, however, Rachel that she was infertile, she envied her sister, and said to her husband: Give me children, otherwise I shall die. 2 To whom Jacob, angered, replied: Am I in place of God, who has deprived you of the fruit of your womb? 3 But she: I have, she says, the handmaid Bala; go in to her, that she may bear upon my knees, and I may have sons from her. 4 And she gave him Bala in conjugium; who, 5 when the man had gone in to her, conceived and bore a son.
6 And Rachel said: The Lord has judged for me, and has hearkened to my voice, giving me a son, and therefore she called his name Dan. 7 And again Bala, conceiving, bore another, 8 for whom Rachel said: God has compared me with my sister, and I have prevailed; and she called him Nephthali. 9 And Leah, perceiving that she had ceased to bear, gave Zelpah her handmaid to her husband.
14 But Reuben, having gone out at the time of the wheat harvest into the field, found mandrakes, which he brought to his mother Leah. And Rachel said: Give me a share of your son’s mandrakes. 15 She responded: Does it seem a small thing to you that you have snatched away my husband from me, unless you also take away my son’s mandrakes? Rachel said: Let him sleep with you this night in exchange for your son’s mandrakes.
16 And as Jacob was returning at evening from the field, Leah went out to meet him, and said, "To me you shall come in; for with a wage I have hired you for my son's mandrakes." And he slept with her that night. 17 And God heard her prayers, and she conceived and bore a fifth son, 18 and she said: God has given me recompense, because I gave my handmaid to my husband; and she called his name Issachar.
19 Again Leah conceiving, bore a sixth son, 20 and said: God has endowed me with a good dowry; even this time my husband will be with me, because I have borne him six sons; and therefore she called his name Zabulon. 21 After whom she bore a daughter, named Dinah. 22 And the Lord also remembered Rachel, hearkened to her, and opened her womb.
26 Give me my wives and my children, for whom I have served you, that I may depart: you know the servitude with which I have served you. 27 Laban said to him: May I find favor in your sight; by experience I have learned that God has blessed me on account of you: 28 set your wage which I shall give you. 29 But he answered: You know how I have served you, and how great your possession has been in my hands.
30 You had little before I came to you, and now you have been made rich: and the Lord has blessed you at my entrance. It is just therefore that I should at some time also provide for my own house. 31 And Laban said: What shall I give you ? But he said: I want nothing: but if you do what I ask, I will again pasture and keep your flocks. 32 Go around all your flocks, and separate all the variegated sheep and those with speckled fleece; whatever shall be dark, and spotted, and variegated, both among the sheep and among the goats, shall be my wages.
33 And my justice will answer for me tomorrow, when the time of the pact shall come before you: and all that will not be variegated, and speckled, and dark, both among the sheep and among the goats, will accuse me of theft. 34 And Laban said: I am pleased with what you ask. 35 And he separated on that day the she-goats, and the sheep, and the he-goats, and the rams that were variegated and speckled; but the whole single-colored flock, that is, of white and of black fleece, he delivered into the hand of his sons.
36 And he set a distance of a three-days’ journey between himself and the son-in-law, who was pasturing his remaining flocks. 37 Therefore Jacob, taking green poplar rods, and almond-tree rods, and from plane-trees, peeled them in part: and the bark having been removed, in those which had been stripped a whiteness appeared; but those which had been whole remained green: and in this way a variegated color was effected. 38 And he placed them in the channels, where water was poured out: so that when the flocks came to drink, they might have the rods before their eyes, and at their sight they might conceive.
39 And it came to pass that in the very heat of coitus, the ewes looked upon the rods, and bore spotted, and variegated, and sprinkled with diverse color. 40 And Jacob divided the flock, and placed the rods in the channels before the eyes of the rams: now the white and the black, each, were Laban’s; but the rest were Jacob’s, the flocks having been separated from one another. 41 Accordingly, when at the first season the ewes were mounted, Jacob would set the rods in the water-troughs before the eyes of the rams and the ewes, that in their contemplation they might conceive: 42 but when there was late mating, and the latest conception, he did not set them.
[31] 1 Postquam autem audivit verba filiorum Laban dicentium: Tulit Jacob omnia quæ fuerunt patris nostri, et de illius facultate ditatus, factus est inclytus: 2 animadvertit quoque faciem Laban, quod non esset erga se sicut heri et nudiustertius, 3 maxime dicente sibi Domino: Revertere in terram patrum tuorum, et ad generationem tuam, eroque tecum. 4 Misit, et vocavit Rachel et Liam in agrum, ubi pascebat greges, 5 dixitque eis: Video faciem patris vestri quod non sit erga me sicut heri et nudiustertius: Deus autem patris mei fuit mecum. 6 Et ipsæ nostis quod totis viribus meis servierim patri vestro.
[31] 1 But after he heard the words of Laban’s sons saying: Jacob has taken all that belonged to our father, and, enriched from that man’s resources, has become renowned: 2 he also noticed Laban’s face, that it was not toward him as yesterday and the day before yesterday, 3 especially as the Lord was saying to him: Return to the land of your fathers and to your generation, and I will be with you. 4 He sent and called Rachel and Leah into the field, where he was pasturing the flocks, 5 and said to them: I see your father’s face, that it is not toward me as yesterday and the day before yesterday: but the God of my father has been with me. 6 And you yourselves know that with all my strength I have served your father.
7 But even your father circumvented me and changed my wages ten times: and yet God did not permit him to harm me. 8 If ever he said: “Variegated shall be your wages,” all the sheep bore variegated offspring; but when, on the contrary, he said: “Every white one you shall receive for wages,” all the flocks bore white. 9 And God took the substance of your father and gave it to me.
10 For when the time of the ewes’ conception had arrived, I lifted my eyes, and I saw in a dream the males mounting upon the females, variegated and maculate, and of diverse colors. 11 And the angel of God said to me in a dream: Jacob? And I replied: Here I am. 12 And he said: Lift up your eyes, and see all the males mounting upon the females, variegated, maculate, and speckled.
For I have seen all the things that Laban has done to you. 13 I am the God of Bethel, where you anointed the stone, and vowed a vow to me. Now therefore arise, and go out from this land, returning to the land of your nativity. 14 And Rachel and Leah answered: Have we any remainder at all in the substance and inheritance of our father's house ? 15 has he not reckoned us as aliens, and sold us, and eaten up our price ? 16 But God has taken the wealth of our father and has handed it over to us and to our sons: wherefore do all that God has commanded you.
17 Therefore Jacob arose, and, having placed his children and his wives upon camels, departed. 18 And he took all his substance, and the flocks, and whatever he had acquired in Mesopotamia, going to Isaac his father in the land of Canaan. 19 At that time Laban had gone to shear the sheep, and Rachel stole her father’s idols.
20 And Jacob did not wish to confess to his father-in-law that he was fleeing. 21 And when he had departed—both he himself and all that were of his right—and, the river having been crossed, he was proceeding toward Mount Gilead, 22 it was announced to Laban on the third day that Jacob was fleeing. 23 Who, having taken his brothers, pursued him for seven days and overtook him on Mount Gilead.
24 And he saw in dreams God saying to him: Beware lest you speak anything harsh against Jacob. 25 And now Jacob had stretched out a tabernacle on the mountain; and when he had overtaken him with his brothers, he fixed a tent on the same Mount Gilead. 26 And he said to Jacob: Why have you done thus, that you drove away my daughters from me secretly as captives by the sword ? 27 why did you wish to flee with me ignorant of it, and not indicate it to me, that I might escort you with joy, and with canticles, and with timbrels, and citharas ? 28 You did not allow me to kiss my sons and my daughters: you have acted foolishly: and now indeed 29 my hand has power to repay you with evil: but the God of your father said to me yesterday: Beware that you speak anything more harshly against Jacob.
30 Granted, you were eager to go to your own, and your father’s house was a desire to you: why did you steal my gods? 31 Jacob answered: That I departed without your knowing, I feared lest you would by violence carry off your daughters. 32 But as to your charging me with theft: with whomever you shall find your gods, let him be put to death before our brothers: search, whatever of yours you shall find with me, and take it away. Saying these things, he did not know that Rachel had stolen the idols.
Then Laban, having entered the tent of Jacob, and of Leah, and of both handmaids, did not find anything. And when he had entered the tent of Rachel, she, hastening, hid the idols beneath the camel’s straw-litter, and sat on top of it; and as he searched the whole tent and found nothing, she said: Let not my lord be angry that I cannot rise before you; for according to the custom of women it has now happened to me. Thus the solicitude of the seeker was deluded. And Jacob, swelling, said with a quarrel: For what fault of mine, and for what sin of mine have you thus blazed after me, and searched all my equipment? What have you found out of all the substance of your house? Set it here before my brothers and your brothers, and let them judge between me and you. These 20 years I was with you: your ewes and goats were not barren, I did not eat the rams of your flock; nor did I show to you what was seized by a beast; I myself made good every loss; whatever perished by theft, you exacted from me; by day and night I was burned by heat and by cold, and sleep fled from my eyes.
41 Thus for twenty years in your house I served you, fourteen for your daughters, and six for your flocks: and you also changed my wages ten times. 42 Unless the God of my father Abraham and the Fear of Isaac had been with me, perhaps by now you would have sent me away naked: God has regarded my affliction and the labor of my hands, and rebuked you yesterday. 43 Laban answered him: My daughters and sons, and your flocks, and all that you see, are mine: what can I do for my sons and my grandsons ? 44 Come therefore, and let us enter into a covenant, that it may be for a testimony between me and you. 45 And so Jacob took a stone, and set it up as a pillar: 46 and he said to his brothers: Bring stones.
Who, gathering together, made a tumulus, and ate upon it: 47 which Laban called Mound of witness; and Jacob, Heap of testimony, each according to the propriety of his own language. 48 And Laban said: This tumulus will be a witness between me and you today, and therefore its name was appellated Gilead, that is, Mound of witness. 49 Let the Lord look upon and judge between us when we shall have withdrawn from one another, 50 if you afflict my daughters, and if you introduce other wives over them: there is no witness of our discourse except God, who, being present, looks on. 51 And he said again to Jacob: Behold this tumulus, and the stone which I have erected between me and you, 52 it will be a witness: this tumulus, I say, and the stone shall be for testimony, if either I shall pass beyond it going to you, or you shall pass beyond, contriving evil against me.
53 The God of Abraham, and the God of Nahor, judge between us, the God of their father. Jacob therefore swore by the Fear of his father Isaac: 54 and, with victims immolated on the mountain, he called his brothers to eat bread. Who, when they had eaten, remained there: 55 but Laban, rising by night, kissed his sons and his daughters, and blessed them: and returned to his own place.
[32] Jacob quoque abiit itinere quo cœperat: fueruntque ei obviam angeli Dei. 2 Quos cum vidisset, ait: Castra Dei sunt hæc: et appellavit nomen loci illius Mahanaim, id est, Castra. 3 Misit autem et nuntios ante se ad Esau fratrem suum in terram Seir, in regionem Edom: 4 præcepitque eis, dicens: Sic loquimini domino meo Esau: Hæc dicit frater tuus Jacob: Apud Laban peregrinatus sum, et fui usque in præsentem diem.
[32] Jacob also went on by the way he had begun: and the angels of God met him. 2 When he saw them, he said: These are the Camps of God: and he called the name of that place Mahanaim, that is, Camps. 3 Moreover he sent messengers before him to Esau his brother, into the land of Seir, into the region of Edom: 4 and he instructed them, saying: Thus speak to my lord Esau: Thus says your brother Jacob: I have sojourned with Laban, and I have been until the present day.
5 I have oxen, and asses, and sheep, and servants, and handmaids: and I am now sending a legation to my lord, that I may find grace in your sight. 6 And the messengers returned to Jacob, saying: We came to Esau your brother, and behold, he is hastening to meet you with four hundred men. 7 Jacob feared greatly: and, terrified, he divided the people who were with him, the flocks also and the sheep, and the oxen, and the camels, into two troops, 8 saying: If Esau comes to one troop and strikes it, the other troop, which has been left, will be saved.
9 And Jacob said: God of my father Abraham, and God of my father Isaac: Lord who said to me: Return to your land, and to the place of your nativity, and I will do good to you: 10 I am lesser than all your mercies and your truth which you have fulfilled for your servant. With my staff I crossed this Jordan: and now with two companies I return. 11 Deliver me from the hand of my brother Esau, for I fear him greatly: lest perhaps, coming, he strike the mother with the children.
12 You have spoken that you would do good to me, and would enlarge my seed like the sand of the sea, which cannot be numbered for multitude. 13 And when he had slept there that night, he set apart from what he had gifts for Esau his brother, 14 two hundred she‑goats, twenty he‑goats, two hundred ewes, and twenty rams, 15 thirty she‑camels with their colts, forty cows, and twenty bulls, twenty she‑asses and ten of their foals. 16 And he sent, by the hands of his servants, separate flocks each by itself, and he said to his lads: Go on before me, and let there be space between flock and flock.
17 And he instructed the first, saying: If you meet my brother Esau, and he asks you: Whose are you? or, Where are you going? or, Whose are these that you are driving? 18 you will answer: Of your servant Jacob; he has sent gifts to my lord Esau; he himself also is coming after us. 19 Likewise he gave commands to the second, and the third, and to all who were following the flocks, saying: Speak to Esau with the same words when you find him. 20 And you shall add: Your servant Jacob himself also is following our journey.
For he said: I will placate him with the gifts which precede, and afterward I will see him: perhaps he will be propitious to me. 21 And so the gifts went on before him, but he himself remained that night in the camp. 22 And when he had risen early, he took his two wives, and just as many handmaids with eleven sons, and crossed over the ford of Jabbok.
23 Having conveyed across all the things that pertained to him, 24 he remained alone: and behold, a man wrestled with him until morning. 25 And when he saw that he could not overcome him, he touched the sinew of his thigh, and it immediately withered. 26 And he said to him: Let me go: for now the aurora has ascended.
He answered: I will not let you go, unless you bless me. 27 Then he said: What is your name ? He answered: Jacob. 28 But he said: By no means, he said, shall your name be called Jacob, but Israel: since if you have been strong against God, how much more will you prevail against men ? 29 Jacob questioned him: Tell me, by what name are you called ? He answered: Why do you seek my name ? And he blessed him in the same place.
30 And Jacob called the name of that place Phanuel, saying: I have seen God face to face, and my soul has been made safe. 31 And the sun rose upon him immediately, after he had passed over Phanuel; but he himself was limping in his foot. 32 For which cause the sons of Israel do not eat the sinew which had withered in the thigh of Jacob, unto the present day: because he touched the sinew of his thigh, and it was benumbed.
[33] 1 Elevans autem Jacob oculos suos, vidit venientem Esau, et cum eo quadringentos viros: divisitque filios Liæ et Rachel, ambarumque famularum: 2 et posuit utramque ancillam, et liberos earum, in principio: Liam vero, et filios ejus, in secundo loco: Rachel autem et Joseph novissimos. 3 Et ipse progrediens adoravit pronus in terram septies, donec appropinquaret frater ejus. 4 Currens itaque Esau obviam fratri suo, amplexatus est eum: stringensque collum ejus, et osculans flevit.
[33] 1 But Jacob, lifting his eyes, saw Esau coming, and with him four hundred men: and he divided the children of Leah and Rachel, and of both handmaids: 2 and he set both handmaids, and their children, in front: but Leah, and her sons, in the second place: but Rachel and Joseph last. 3 And he himself, going forward, bowed prostrate to the ground seven times, until his brother drew near. 4 Therefore Esau, running to meet his brother, embraced him: and, clasping his neck and kissing him, he wept.
5 And having lifted his eyes, he saw the women and their little ones, and said: What do these intend ? and do they pertain to you ? He replied: They are the little ones whom God has bestowed upon your servant. 6 And the handmaids and their sons, as they approached, bowed themselves. 7 Leah likewise came near with her boys: and when they had in like manner done obeisance, last Joseph and Rachel did obeisance.
8 And Esau said: What are these troops that I met on the way? He replied: That I might find favor before my lord. 9 But he said: I have very many, my brother; let what is yours be yours. 10 And Jacob said: Do not so, I beseech; but if I have found favor in your eyes, receive a little gift from my hands.
For thus I have seen your face, as if I had seen the face of God: be propitious to me, 11 and receive the benediction which I have brought to you, and which God has given to me, bestowing all things. With difficulty, at his brother’s urging, he accepted it, 12 and said: Let us go together, and I will be a companion of your journey. 13 And Jacob said: You know, my lord, that I have tender little children, and pregnant ewes and cows with me: which, if I make them labor more in walking, all the flocks will die in one day.
14 Let my lord go on before his servant: and I will follow little by little in his footsteps, as I see my little ones able, until I come to my lord in Seir. 15 Esau answered: I beg you, that of the people who are with me, at least companions may remain for your way. It is not, he said, necessary: I need this one thing only, that I may find favor in your sight, my lord. 16 And so Esau returned that day by the way by which he had come, to Seir. 17 And Jacob came to Socoth: where, a house having been built and the tents fixed, he called the name of that place Socoth, that is, Tabernacles.
18 And he crossed over into Salem, the city of the Shechemites, which is in the land of Canaan, after he had returned from Mesopotamia of Syria: and he dwelt near the town. 19 And he bought the portion of the field in which he had pitched his tents, from the sons of Hamor, father of Shechem, for a hundred lambs. 20 And, an altar having been erected there, he invoked upon it the most mighty God of Israel.
[34] 1 Egressa est autem Dina filia Liæ ut videret mulieres regionis illius. 2 Quam cum vidisset Sichem filius Hemor Hevæi, princeps terræ illius, adamavit eam: et rapuit, et dormivit cum illa, vi opprimens virginem. 3 Et conglutinata est anima ejus cum ea, tristemque delinivit blanditiis.
[34] 1 But Dinah, the daughter of Leah, went out to see the women of that region. 2 And when Shechem, son of Hamor the Hivite, prince of that land, saw her, he became enamored of her; and he seized her and lay with her, oppressing the virgin by force. 3 And his soul was glued fast to her, and he soothed the sorrowful one with blandishments.
4 And going to Hemor his father: “Take,” he says, “this girl for me as a wife.” 5 When Jacob heard this, his sons being absent and occupied with the pasturing of the flocks, he was silent until they returned. 6 But when Hemor, the father of Sichem, went out to speak to Jacob, 7 behold, his sons were coming from the field; and having heard what had happened, they were very angry, because he had wrought a foul thing in Israel and, with the daughter of Jacob violated, had perpetrated an illicit deed.
8 Therefore Hamor spoke to them: The soul of my son Shechem has adhered to your daughter: give her to him as a wife: 9 and let us join connubial bonds in turn: give your daughters to us, and take our daughters, 10 and dwell with us: the land is in your power: cultivate, do business, and possess it. 11 And Shechem also said to her father and to her brothers: Let me find favor before you: and whatever you shall determine, I will give: 12 increase the dowry, and demand gifts, and I will gladly bestow what you shall ask: only give me this girl as a wife. 13 The sons of Jacob answered Shechem and his father with guile, raging on account of the defilement of their sister: 14 We cannot do what you ask, nor give our sister to an uncircumcised man: which is illicit and nefarious among us.
15 But in this we shall be able to enter into a covenant, if you are willing to be like us, and let every one of the male sex among you be circumcised; 16 then we will give and receive mutually your daughters and ours: and we will dwell with you, and we shall be one people. 17 But if you are unwilling to be circumcised, we will take away our daughter, and withdraw. 18 Their offer pleased Hamor, and Shechem his son, 19 nor did the adolescent delay to fulfill at once what was asked: for he loved the girl very much, and he himself was illustrious in all the house of his father.
20 And having entered the gate of the city, they spoke to the people: 21 These men are pacific, and they wish to dwell with us: let them trade in the land, and cultivate it, which, spacious and broad, is in need of cultivators: we will take their daughters as wives, and we will give ours to them. 22 There is one thing by which so great a good is deferred: if we circumcise our males, imitating the rite of the nation. 23 And their substance, and cattle, and all that they possess, will be ours: only let us acquiesce in this, and, dwelling together, we will be made one people.
24 And all assented, all the males having been circumcised. 25 And behold, on the third day, when the most grievous pain of the wounds is: the two sons of Jacob, Simeon and Levi, brothers of Dina, having seized swords, entered the city confidently: and with all the males slain, 26 they likewise killed Hemor and Sichem, taking Dina, their sister, out of the house of Sichem. 27 They having gone out, the other sons of Jacob rushed upon the slain: and they laid waste the city in vengeance for the rape.
28 Their sheep, and herds, and asses, and, laying waste all that was in the houses and in the fields, 29 they also led away their little ones and their wives as captives. 30 These things having been boldly accomplished, Jacob said to Simeon and Levi: You have troubled me, and have made me odious to the Canaanites and the Perizzites, the inhabitants of this land: we are few; they, having assembled, will strike me, and I shall be destroyed, I and my house. 31 They answered: Ought he to have abused our sister like a harlot ?
[35] 1 Interea locutus est Deus ad Jacob: Surge, et ascende Bethel, et habita ibi, facque altare Deo qui apparuit tibi quando fugiebas Esau fratrem tuum. 2 Jacob vero convocata omni domo sua, ait: Abjicite deos alienos qui in medio vestri sunt, et mundamini, ac mutate vestimenta vestra. 3 Surgite, et ascendamus in Bethel, ut faciamus ibi altare Deo: qui exaudivit me in die tribulationis meæ, et socius fuit itineris mei.
[35] 1 Meanwhile God spoke to Jacob: Arise, and go up to Bethel, and dwell there, and make an altar to God who appeared to you when you were fleeing Esau your brother. 2 But Jacob, having called together all his household, said: Cast away the foreign gods that are in your midst, and be cleansed, and change your garments. 3 Arise, and let us go up to Bethel, that we may make there an altar to God: who hearkened to me in the day of my tribulation, and was a companion of my journey.
4 Therefore they gave to him all the alien gods which they had, and the earrings that were in their ears: and he buried them beneath the terebinth which is behind the city Shechem. 5 And when they had set out, the terror of God invaded all the cities round about, and they did not dare to pursue those departing. 6 Jacob therefore came to Luz, which is in the land of Canaan, by surname Bethel: he and all the people with him. 7 And he built there an altar, and he called the name of that place, House of God: for there God appeared to him when he was fleeing his brother.
8 At the same time Deborah, Rebecca’s nurse, died, and she was buried at the foot of Bethel beneath an oak: and the name of that place was called the Oak of Weeping. 9 Then God appeared again to Jacob after he had returned from Mesopotamia of Syria, and he blessed him 10 saying: You shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel shall be your name. And he called him Israel, 11 and said to him: I am God Omnipotent: grow and multiply: nations and peoples of nations shall be from you, kings shall go forth from your loins, 12 and the land which I gave to Abraham and Isaac, I will give to you and to your seed after you. 13 And he withdrew from him. 14 But he on his part set up a stone pillar in the place where God had spoken with him: pouring libations upon it, and pouring out oil: 15 and he called the name of that place Bethel.
16 But having gone out from there, he came in vernal time to the land that leads to Ephrath; and in it, while Rachel was in labor, 17 on account of the difficulty of the childbirth she began to be in peril. And the midwife said to her: Do not fear, for you will have this son also. 18 But as her soul was going out because of pain, and with death now imminent, she called the name of her son Benomi, that is, Son of my sorrow; but his father called him Benjamin, that is, Son of the right hand. 19 Therefore Rachel died, and she was buried on the way that leads to Ephrath, that is Bethlehem.
20 And Jacob erected a pillar over her sepulcher: this is the pillar of Rachel’s monument, unto the present day. 21 Departing thence, he pitched his tent beyond the Tower of the Flock. 22 And while he was dwelling in that region, Reuben went and lay with Bala, his father’s concubine; which by no means escaped him.
25 The sons of Bilhah, Rachel’s handmaid: Dan and Naphtali. 26 The sons of Zilpah, Leah’s handmaid: Gad and Asher: these are the sons of Jacob, who were born to him in Mesopotamia of Syria. 27 He also came to Isaac his father in Mamre, the city of Arbah, this is Hebron, in which Abraham and Isaac sojourned. 28 And the days of Isaac were completed at one hundred eighty years.
[36] Hæ sunt autem generationes Esau, ipse est Edom. 2 Esau accepit uxores de filiabus Chanaan: Ada filiam Elon Hethæi, et Oolibama filiam Anæ filiæ Sebeon Hevæi: 3 Basemath quoque filiam Ismaël sororem Nabaioth. 4 Peperit autem Ada Eliphaz: Basemath genuit Rahuel: 5 Oolibama genuit Jehus et Ihelon et Core.
[36] Now these are the generations of Esau, he himself is Edom. 2 Esau took wives from the daughters of Canaan: Ada, the daughter of Elon the Hittite, and Oolibama, the daughter of Ana, daughter of Sebeon the Hivite: 3 Basemath also, the daughter of Ismael, sister of Nabaioth. 4 Now Ada bore Eliphaz: Basemath bore Rahuel: 5 Oolibama bore Jehus and Ihelon and Core.
These are the sons of Esau who were born to him in the land of Canaan. 6 But Esau took his wives and sons and daughters, and every soul of his house, and his substance, and his cattle, and all that he was able to possess in the land of Canaan: and he went into another region, and withdrew from his brother Jacob. 7 For they were very rich, and they could not dwell together: nor did the land of their sojourning support them because of the multitude of their flocks.
8 And Esau dwelt on Mount Seir, he himself is Edom. 9 Now these are the generations of Esau, the father of Edom, on Mount Seir, 10 and these the names of his sons: Eliphaz, the son of Ada, Esau’s wife; and Rahuel also, the son of Basemath, his wife. 11 And the sons of Eliphaz were: Theman, Omar, Sepho, and Gatham, and Cenez.
14 These also were the sons of Oolibama, daughter of Ana, daughter of Sebeon, the wife of Esau, whom she bore to him: Jehus and Ihelon and Core. 15 These are the dukes of the sons of Esau: the sons of Eliphaz, the firstborn of Esau: duke Theman, duke Omra, duke Sepho, duke Cenez, 16 duke Core, duke Gathan, duke Amalech. These are the sons of Eliphaz in the land of Edom, and these are the sons of Ada.
17 These also are the sons of Rahuel, son of Esau: duke Nahath, duke Zara, duke Samma, duke Meza: these, moreover, are the dukes of Rahuel in the land of Edom: these are the sons of Basemath, wife of Esau. 18 And these are the sons of Oolibama, wife of Esau: duke Jehus, duke Ihelon, duke Core: these are the dukes of Oolibama, daughter of Ana, wife of Esau. 19 These are the sons of Esau, and these their dukes: he is Edom.
29 These are the dukes of the Horites: duke Lotan, duke Sobal, duke Sebeon, duke Ana, 30 duke Dison, duke Eser, duke Disan: these are the dukes of the Horites who held command in the land of Seir. 31 But the kings who reigned in the land of Edom before the sons of Israel had a king were these: 32 Bela son of Beor, and the name of his city was Denaba. 33 But Bela died, and Jobab son of Zerah, from Bozrah, reigned in his place.
34 And when Jobab had died, Husam from the land of the Temanites reigned in his stead. 35 This one also having died, Adad son of Badad reigned in his stead, who struck Midian in the region of Moab: and the name of his city was Avith. 36 And when Adad had died, Semla from Masreca reigned in his stead.
37 This one also having died, Saul from the river Rehoboth reigned in his stead. 38 And when he too had died, Balanan son of Achobor succeeded to the kingdom. 39 This one also having died, Adar reigned in his stead, and the name of his city was Phau: and his wife was called Meetabel, daughter of Matred, daughter of Mezaab.
40 These therefore are the names of the dukes of Esau in their cognations, and places, and their own appellations: duke Thamna, duke Alva, duke Jetheth, 41 duke Oolibama, duke Ela, duke Phinon, 42 duke Cenez, duke Theman, duke Mabsar, 43 duke Magdiel, duke Hiram: these are the dukes of Edom, dwelling in the land of their dominion; he himself is Esau, father of the Idumaeans.
[37] 1 Habitavit autem Jacob in terra Chanaan, in qua pater suus peregrinatus est. 2 Et hæ sunt generationes ejus: Joseph cum sedecim esset annorum, pascebat gregem cum fratribus suis adhuc puer: et erat cum filiis Balæ et Zelphæ uxorum patris sui: accusavitque fratres suos apud patrem crimine pessimo. 3 Israël autem diligebat Joseph super omnes filios suos, eo quod in senectute genuisset eum: fecitque ei tunicam polymitam.
[37] 1 But Jacob dwelt in the land of Chanaan, in which his father had sojourned. 2 And these are his generations: Joseph, when he was sixteen years of age, was pasturing the flock with his brothers, still a boy; and he was with the sons of Balæ and Zelphæ, the wives of his father; and he accused his brothers before their father of a most wicked crime. 3 But Israël loved Joseph above all his sons, because he had begotten him in old age; and he made for him a polymitous tunic (a coat of many colors).
4 But when his brothers saw that he was loved by his father more than all his sons, they hated him, and could not speak anything to him peacefully. 5 It also befell that he reported a dream to his brothers; which was the seedbed of greater hatred. 6 And he said to them: Hear my dream which I saw: 7 I thought we were binding sheaves in the field; and, as it were, my sheaf rose up and stood, and your sheaves, standing around, were bowing down to my sheaf.
8 His brothers answered: Will you be our king ? Or shall we be subjected to your dominion ? This, therefore, on account of the dreams and the speeches, supplied the kindling of envy and hatred. 9 He saw another dream also, and, telling it to his brothers, he said: I saw in a dream, as if the sun and the moon and eleven stars were bowing down to me. 10 And when he had related it to his father and his brothers, his father rebuked him and said: What does this dream that you have seen mean ? shall I and your mother and your brothers bow down to you to the ground ? 11 Therefore his brothers envied him; but his father considered the matter in silence. 12 And while his brothers were staying at Shechem, pasturing their father’s flocks, 13 Israel said to him: Your brothers are pasturing the sheep at Shechem: come, I will send you to them.
As he answered, 14 Here I am, he said to him: Go, and see if all is well with your brothers and the livestock; and report back to me what is being done. Sent from the valley of Hebron, he came to Shechem: 15 and a man found him wandering in the field, and asked what he was seeking. 16 But he replied: I am seeking my brothers; indicate to me where they are pasturing the flocks.
17 And the man said to him: They have withdrawn from this place: moreover I heard them saying: Let us go into Dothan. Joseph therefore went on after his brothers, and found them in Dothan. 18 Who, when they had seen him from afar, before he approached them, devised to kill him: 19 and they said one to another: Behold, the dreamer comes: 20 come, let us kill him, and cast him into an old cistern: and we shall say: A most wicked feral beast has devoured him: and then it will appear how his dreams profit him.
21 But hearing this, Reuben was striving to liberate him from their hands, and kept saying: 22 Do not take his life, nor shed blood: but cast him into this cistern which is in the wilderness, and keep your hands innocent: now he was saying this, wishing to snatch him from their hands, and to restore him to his father. 23 Forthwith therefore, when he came to his brothers, they stripped him of the ankle-length and many-colored tunic: 24 and they cast him into an old cistern, which did not have water. 25 And sitting down to eat bread, they saw Ishmaelites, travelers, coming from Gilead, and their camels carrying aromatics, and resin, and stacte into Egypt.
26 Therefore Judah said to his brothers: What does it profit us if we kill our brother and conceal his blood ? 27 it is better that he be sold to the Ishmaelites, and let not our hands be polluted: for he is our brother and our flesh. His brothers acquiesced to his words. 28 And as Midianite merchants were passing by, drawing him out of the cistern, they sold him to the Ishmaelites for twenty pieces of silver: who led him into Egypt.
29 And Reuben, having returned to the cistern, did not find the boy: 30 and, with his garments torn, going to his brothers, he said: The boy does not appear, and I—where shall I go? 31 But they took his tunic, and they dipped it in the blood of a kid which they had slain: 32 sending those who would carry it to the father and say: This we have found: see whether it is your son’s tunic or not. 33 Which, when the father had recognized, he said: It is my son’s tunic: a most savage wild beast has eaten him; a beast has devoured Joseph. 34 And his garments torn, he clothed himself in haircloth (cilice), mourning his son for a long time.
But when all his children had gathered to soothe their father’s grief, he would not accept consolation, but said: I will go down to my son, mourning, into the underworld. And as he persisted in weeping, the Midianites sold Joseph in Egypt to Potiphar, a eunuch of Pharaoh, the master of the soldiers.
[38] 1 Eodem tempore, descendens Judas a fratribus suis, divertit ad virum Odollamitem, nomine Hiram. 2 Viditque ibi filiam hominis Chananæi, vocabulo Sue: et accepta uxore, ingressus est ad eam. 3 Quæ concepit, et peperit filium, et vocavit nomen ejus Her.
[38] 1 At the same time, Judah, going down from his brothers, turned aside to an Odollamite man, named Hiram. 2 And he saw there the daughter of a Canaanite man, by the name Sue; and, a wife having been taken, he went in to her. 3 And she conceived and bore a son, and called his name Her.
7 There was also Her, the firstborn of Judah, wicked in the sight of the Lord: and he was slain by Him. 8 Therefore Judah said to Onan his son: Go in to your brother’s wife, and be joined with her, that you may raise up seed for your brother. 9 He, knowing that children would not be born as his own, going in to his brother’s wife, would pour the seed upon the ground, lest offspring be born in the name of his brother.
10 And therefore the Lord struck him, because he was doing a detestable deed. 11 Wherefore Judah said to Thamar his daughter-in-law: Be a widow in the house of your father, until Sela my son grows up: for he feared lest he also should die, like his brothers. She then departed, and dwelt in the house of her father.
12 But after many days had rolled by, the daughter of Shua, Judah’s wife, died; and he, after the mourning with consolation received, was going up to the shearers of his sheep, he himself and Hiras the Adullamite, the shepherd of the flock, to Thamnas. 13 And it was announced to Thamar that her father-in-law was going up to Thamnas to shear the sheep. 14 She, having laid aside the garments of widowhood, took up a veil; and with her attire changed, she sat at the fork of the road which leads to Thamnas, because Shela had grown up, and she had not been given him as a husband.
15 When Judah saw her, he supposed she was a prostitute: for she had covered her face, lest she be recognized. 16 And going in to her, he said: Allow me, that I may have coitus with you: for he did not know that she was his daughter-in-law. She answering: What will you give me, that you may enjoy my intercourse ? 17 he said: I will send you a kid from the flocks.
And again she saying: I will endure what you wish, if you will give me an arrha-pledge, until you send what you promise. 18 Judas said: What do you wish to be given to you for the pledge ? She answered: Your ring, and your bracelet, and the staff which you hold in your hand. Therefore at a single coitus the woman conceived, 19 and rising she departed: and, the habit which she had assumed laid aside, she was clothed in the garments of widowhood.
20 But Judas sent a kid through his shepherd, an Adullamite, to recover the pledge which he had given to the woman; and when he had not found her, 21 he asked the men of that place: Where is the woman who sat at the crossroad? All answering: There has not been a prostitute in this place. 22 He returned to Judas and said to him: I did not find her; and the men of that place also told me that a harlot has never sat there. 23 Judas said: Let her keep them; certainly she cannot accuse us of mendacity: I sent the kid which I had promised, and you did not find her.
24 Behold, however, after three months they reported to Judah, saying: Tamar, your daughter-in-law, has committed fornication, and it appears that her womb is swelling. And Judah said: Bring her out so that she may be burned. 25 Who, when she was being led to punishment, sent to her father-in-law, saying: By the man to whom these things belong I conceived: recognize whose are the ring, and the armlet, and the staff.
26 He, the pledges having been recognized, said: She is more just than I: because I did not give her to Shelah my son. Nevertheless, thereafter he did not know her. 27 But with the birth pressing, twins appeared in the womb: and at the very effusion of the infants one put forth a hand, on which the midwife tied a scarlet thread, saying: 28 This one will go out first.
[39] 1 Igitur Joseph ductus est in Ægyptum, emitque eum Putiphar eunuchus Pharaonis, princeps exercitus, vir ægyptius, de manu Ismaëlitarum, a quibus perductus erat. 2 Fuitque Dominus cum eo, et erat vir in cunctis prospere agens: habitavitque in domo domini sui, 3 qui optime noverat Dominum esse cum eo, et omnia, quæ gerebat, ab eo dirigi in manu illius. 4 Invenitque Joseph gratiam coram domino suo, et ministrabat ei: a quo præpositus omnibus gubernabat creditam sibi domum, et universa quæ ei tradita fuerant: 5 benedixitque Dominus domui Ægyptii propter Joseph, et multiplicavit tam in ædibus quam in agris cunctam ejus substantiam: 6 nec quidquam aliud noverat, nisi panem quo vescebatur.
[39] 1 Therefore Joseph was brought into Egypt, and Putiphar, a eunuch of Pharaoh, commander of the army, an Egyptian man, bought him from the hand of the Ishmaelites, by whom he had been conducted. 2 And the Lord was with him, and he was a man prospering in all things: and he dwelt in the house of his master, 3 who knew full well that the Lord was with him, and that all things which he did were directed by Him in his hand. 4 And Joseph found grace before his master, and ministered to him: and by him, being set over all things, he governed the house entrusted to him, and all that had been delivered to him: 5 and the Lord blessed the house of the Egyptian on account of Joseph, and multiplied all his substance both in the house and in the fields: 6 and he knew nothing else, save the bread which he ate.
Now Joseph was fair of face, and comely in appearance. 7 After many days therefore his mistress cast her eyes upon Joseph, and said: Sleep with me. 8 But he, by no means assenting to the nefarious deed, said to her: Behold, my master, with everything entrusted to me, is ignorant of what he has in his house: 9 nor is there anything that is not in my power, or that he has not entrusted to me, except you, who are his wife: how then can I do this evil, and sin against my God ? 10 With words of this sort day by day, the woman was vexatious to the youth; and he refused the defilement.
11 However, it happened on a certain day that Joseph entered the house and, without witnesses, was doing some piece of work: 12 and she, having seized the fringe of his garment, said: Sleep with me. But he, leaving his cloak in her hand, fled and went outside. 13 And when the woman saw the garment in her hands, and that she had been scorned, 14 she called to herself the men of her household, and said to them: Behold, he has brought in a Hebrew man to make sport of us: he came in to me to have intercourse with me: and when I cried out, 15 and he heard my voice, he left the cloak which I was holding, and fled outside.
16 Therefore, as an argument for her story, she showed the retained cloak to her husband returning home, 17 and said: The Hebrew servant whom you brought in to me entered, to make sport of me: 18 and when he heard me cry out, he left the cloak which I was holding, and fled outside. 19 On hearing this, the master, being too credulous of his wife’s words, was very angry: 20 and he handed Joseph over into the prison where the king’s prisoners were kept, and he was shut up there. 21 But the Lord was with Joseph, and, having had mercy on him, gave him grace in the sight of the chief of the prison.
[40] 1 His ita gestis, accidit ut peccarent duo eunuchi, pincerna regis Ægypti, et pistor, domino suo. 2 Iratusque contra eos Pharao (nam alter pincernis præerat, alter pistoribus), 3 misit eos in carcerem principis militum, in quo erat vinctus et Joseph. 4 At custos carceris tradidit eos Joseph, qui et ministrabat eis: aliquantulum temporis fluxerat, et illi in custodia tenebantur.
[40] 1 With these things thus done, it befell that two eunuchs, the cupbearer of the king of Egypt, and the baker, sinned against their lord. 2 And Pharaoh grew angry against them (for the one was set over the cupbearers, the other over the bakers), 3 and he sent them into the prison of the captain of the guard, in which Joseph also was bound. 4 But the keeper of the prison handed them over to Joseph, who also ministered to them: a little time had passed, and they were kept in custody.
5 And both saw a dream in one night, according to an interpretation congruent to each of them: 6 and when Joseph had entered to them in the morning, and had seen them sad, 7 he inquired of them, saying: Why is your face today sadder than usual ? 8 Who answered: We have seen a dream, and there is no one who may interpret it for us. And Joseph said to them: Is not interpretation God’s ? refer to me what you have seen. 9 The former, the prefect over the cupbearers, narrated his dream: I was seeing before me a vine, 10 on which there were three shoots, growing little by little into buds, and after the flowers the grapes were ripening: 11 and the chalice of Pharaoh was in my hand: therefore I took the grapes, and expressed them into the chalice which I was holding, and I handed the cup to Pharaoh.
12 Joseph answered: This is the interpretation of the dream: the three shoots are three days yet: 13 after which Pharaoh will remember your ministry, and will restore you to your former rank: and you will give him the cup according to your office, just as you were accustomed to do before. 14 Only remember me, when it shall be well with you, and do mercy with me: that you may suggest to Pharaoh to lead me out of this prison: 15 for I was stolen away from the land of the Hebrews, and here, though innocent, I was sent into the pit. 16 Seeing that he had prudently resolved the dream, the master of the bakers said: I too saw a dream: that I had three baskets of flour upon my head: 17 and in one basket, which was higher, I was carrying all the foods that are made by the baking art, and the birds were eating from it. 18 Joseph answered: This is the interpretation of the dream: the three baskets are three days yet: 19 after which Pharaoh will take away your head, and will hang you on a cross, and the birds will lacerate your flesh.
20 Thereupon the third day was Pharaoh’s birthday: who, making a great banquet for his servants, remembered amid the courses the master of the cupbearers and the prince of the bakers. 21 And he restored the one to his place, that he might hand him the cup: 22 the other he hanged on a gallows, that the truth of the interpreter might be proved. 23 And yet, as things prospered, the overseer of the cupbearers forgot his interpreter.
[41] 1 Post duos annos vidit Pharao somnium. Putabat se stare super fluvium, 2 de quo ascendebant septem boves, pulchræ et crassæ nimis: et pascebantur in locis palustribus. 3 Aliæ quoque septem emergebant de flumine, fœdæ confectæque macie: et pascebantur in ipsa amnis ripa in locis virentibus: 4 devoraveruntque eas, quarum mira species et habitudo corporum erat.
[41] 1 After two years Pharaoh saw a dream. He supposed himself to be standing over the river, 2 from which seven cows were ascending, beautiful and exceedingly fat: and they were grazing in marshy places. 3 Another seven likewise were emerging from the river, foul and worn out with emaciation: and they were grazing on the very bank of the river in green places: 4 and they devoured them, whose wondrous appearance and bodily habit were remarkable.
Awakened, Pharaoh, 5 again slept, and saw another dream: seven ears of grain were sprouting on one stalk, full and beautiful: 6 likewise other as many ears, thin and struck by blight, were arising, 7 devouring the beauty of all the former. Waking after rest, Pharaoh, 8 and with morning made, terrified with fear, sent to all the interpreters of Egypt, and all the wise men, and, when they had been summoned, he recounted the dream, but there was no one who would interpret it. 9 Then at last the chief of the cupbearers, remembering, said: I confess my sin: 10 the king, angry with his servants, commanded me and the chief of the bakers to be thrust into the prison of the commander of the soldiers: 11 where in one night we both saw a dream presaging future things.
12 There was there a Hebrew boy, a servant of that same captain of the soldiers; to whom, as we were narrating our dreams, 13 we heard whatever afterward the event of the matter proved: for I was restored to my office, and he was hung upon a cross. 14 Straightway, at the king’s command, they brought Joseph out of the prison; and, having shaved him, and with his garment changed, they presented him to him. 15 To whom he said: I have seen dreams, and there is no one to expound them: which I have heard that you most wisely conjecture. 16 Joseph answered: Not from me; God will answer prosperous things to Pharaoh.
17 Therefore Pharaoh narrated what he had seen: I was supposing myself to stand upon the bank of the river, 18 and seven cows were ascending from the river, exceedingly beautiful and with obese flesh: which in the pasture of the marsh were cropping the verdure. 19 And behold, these were followed by another seven cows, so deformed and emaciated that never such as these have I seen in the land of Egypt: 20 which, the former having been devoured and consumed, 21 gave no trace of satiety: but they were torpid with similar leanness and squalor. Awakening, again pressed down by sleep, 22 I saw a dream.
Seven ears were sprouting on one stalk, full and most beautiful. 23 Likewise other seven, thin and smitten by blight, were arising from the stalk: 24 which devoured the pulchritude of the former. I narrated the dream to the conjecturers, and there is no one who could expound it. 25 Joseph answered: The dream of the king is one: what God is about to do, he has shown to Pharaoh.
26 The seven beautiful cows and the seven full ears are seven years of abundance; and they comprehend the same force of the dream. 27 Likewise the seven thin and gaunt cows, which came up after them, and the seven thin ears, struck by a burning wind, are seven years of coming famine. 28 Which will be fulfilled in this order: 29 behold, seven years will come of great fertility in the whole land of Egypt, 30 which will be followed by seven other years of such sterility that all the former abundance will be consigned to oblivion; for the famine will consume the whole land, 31 and the greatness of fertility will be destroyed by the greatness of want.
32 But that you saw a dream a second time pertaining to the same matter: it is an indication of firmness, in that the word of God shall be done, and be fulfilled more swiftly. 33 Now therefore let the king provide a wise and industrious man, and set him over the land of Egypt: 34 who shall appoint prefects through all the regions: and let him gather into the granaries a fifth part of the produce during the seven years of fertility, 35 which even now are about to be: and let all the grain be stored under Pharaoh’s power, and be kept in the cities. 36 And let there be preparation for the future famine of seven years, which shall oppress Egypt, and the land shall not be consumed by want.
37 The counsel pleased Pharaoh and all his ministers: 38 and he spoke to them: Shall we be able to find such a man, who is full of the Spirit of God? 39 Therefore he said to Joseph: Since God has shown to you all that you have spoken, will I be able to find one more wise and like unto you? 40 You shall be over my house, and at the command of your mouth all the people shall obey: only by the throne of the kingdom shall I precede you. 41 And Pharaoh said again to Joseph: Behold, I have set you over the whole land of Egypt. 42 And he took the ring from his hand and gave it into his hand: and he clothed him with a byssine robe, and placed a golden torque around his neck.
43 And he made him ride in his second chariot, with the herald crying out, that all should bend the knee before him, and should know that he was set over the whole land of Egypt. 44 The king also said to Joseph: I am Pharaoh: without your command no one shall move hand or foot in all the land of Egypt. 45 And he changed his name, and called him, in the Egyptian tongue, the Savior of the world.
DAnd he gave him as wife Aseneth, the daughter of Putiphare, priest of Heliopolis. Joseph therefore went out to the land of Egypt 46 (now he was thirty years old when he stood in the sight of King Pharaoh), and he went around all the regions of Egypt. 47 And the fertility of seven years came; and the crops, brought into sheaves, were gathered into the granaries of Egypt.
48 Also all the abundance of produce was stored up in each city. 49 And so great was the abundance of wheat that it was equalled to the sand of the sea, and the supply exceeded measure. 50 Now two sons were born to Joseph before the famine came: whom Aseneth, daughter of Putiphare, priest of Heliopolis, bore to him.
51 And he called the name of the firstborn Manasseh, saying: God has made me forget all my labors, and my father's house. 52 And the name of the second he called Ephraim, saying: God has made me grow in the land of my affliction. 53 Therefore, when the seven years of abundance that had been in Egypt were completed, 54 the seven years of want began to come, which Joseph had foretold; and in the whole world famine prevailed, but in all the land of Egypt there was bread. 55 As hunger pressed, the people cried out to Pharaoh, asking for provisions.
To whom he replied: Go to Joseph; and whatever he himself tells you, do. 56 But the famine was increasing daily in all the land; and Joseph opened all the granaries, and sold to the Egyptians, for the famine had oppressed them also. And all the provinces were coming into Egypt to buy victuals and to temper the evil of want.
[42] 1 Audiens autem Jacob quod alimenta venderentur in Ægypto, dixit filiis suis: Quare negligitis ? 2 audivi quod triticum venundetur in Ægypto: descendite, et emite nobis necessaria, ut possimus vivere, et non consumamur inopia. 3 Descendentes igitur fratres Joseph decem, ut emerent frumenta in Ægypto, 4 Benjamin domi retento a Jacob, qui dixerat fratribus ejus: Ne forte in itinere quidquam patiatur mali: 5 ingressi sunt terram Ægypti cum aliis qui pergebant ad emendum. Erat autem fames in terra Chanaan.
[42] 1 But Jacob, hearing that provisions were being sold in Egypt, said to his sons: Why do you neglect ? 2 i have heard that wheat is being sold in Egypt: go down, and buy for us the necessaries, that we may be able to live, and not be consumed by want. 3 Therefore the ten brothers of Joseph went down, to buy grain in Egypt, 4 Benjamin having been kept at home by Jacob, who had said to his brothers: Lest perhaps on the journey he suffer any harm: 5 they entered the land of Egypt with others who were proceeding to purchase. Now there was famine in the land of Canaan.
6 And Joseph was chief in the land of Egypt, and at his nod grain was being sold to the peoples. And when his brothers had bowed to him, 7 and he had recognized them, he spoke more harshly as to strangers, questioning them: Whence have you come ? They answered: From the land of Canaan, that we may buy things necessary for sustenance. 8 And yet, though he himself recognized his brothers, he was not recognized by them.
9 And remembering the dreams which he had once seen, he said to them: You are spies: you have come to see the weaker parts of the land. 10 And they said: It is not so, lord, but your servants have come to buy food. 11 We are all sons of one man: we have come peaceably, nor do your servants contrive any evil.
12 To whom he replied: It is otherwise: you have come to observe the unfortified parts of this land. 13 But they said: Twelve, say they, are your servants; we are brothers, sons of one man in the land of Canaan: the youngest is with our father, another is no more. 14 This is, he said, what I have spoken: you are spies.
15 Now, at this point I will take a trial of you: by the life of Pharaoh you shall not go out from here, until your youngest brother comes. 16 Send one of you, and let him bring him: but you shall be in bonds, until the things you have said are proved whether they are true or false: otherwise, by the life of Pharaoh, you are spies. 17 Therefore he handed them over to custody for three days.
18 But on the third day, having brought them out of the prison, he said: Do what I have said, and you will live: for I fear God. 19 If you are peaceable, let one of your brothers be bound in the prison; but you go, and carry the grain which you have bought into your houses, 20 and bring your youngest brother to me, that I may be able to prove your words, and you will not die. They did as he had said, 21 and they spoke to one another: We deservedly suffer these things, because we have sinned against our brother, seeing the anguish of his soul, while he was beseeching us, and we did not listen: therefore this tribulation has come upon us.
22 And one of them, Reuben, said: Did I not say to you: Do not sin against the boy: and you did not listen to me ? behold, his blood is being required. 23 But they did not know that Joseph understood, because he spoke to them through an interpreter. 24 And he turned himself aside for a little while, and wept: and returning he spoke to them.
25 And taking Simeon, and binding him in their presence, he ordered the attendants to fill their sacks with wheat, and to put back each one’s monies in his little bag, provisions given in addition for the journey: and they did so. 26 But they, carrying the grain on their donkeys, set out. 27 And one, his sack opened to give fodder to the beast at the lodging-place, seeing the money at the mouth of the little bag, 28 said to his brothers: My money has been returned to me; behold, it is in the bag.
And stupefied and troubled, they said to one another: What is this that God has done to us? 29 And they came to Jacob their father in the land of Canaan, and narrated to him all that had happened to them, saying: 30 The lord of the land spoke to us harshly, and thought us to be explorers of the province. 31 To whom we responded: We are pacific, nor do we contrive any ambushes. 32 We are twelve brothers begotten by one father: one is no more, the youngest is with our father in the land of Canaan. 33 Who said to us: Thus I will prove that you are pacific: leave one brother of yours with me, and take provisions necessary for your houses, and go, 34 and bring your youngest brother to me, that I may know that you are not explorers: and that you may be able to receive this one who is held in chains: and thereafter you shall have license to buy what you wish.
35 With these things said, when they were pouring out the grain, each one found the money tied at the mouth of his sack, and with all at once terrified, 36 father Jacob said: You have made me bereft of children: Joseph is no more, Simeon is held in chains, and you will take Benjamin away: upon me all these evils have recoiled. 37 To whom Reuben replied: Put to death my two sons, if I do not bring him back to you: entrust him into my hand, and I will restore him to you. 38 But he said: My son shall not go down with you: his brother is dead, and he alone is left: if anything adverse should befall him in the land to which you are going, you will bring down my gray hairs with sorrow to the underworld.
[43] 1 Interim fames omnem terram vehementer premebat. 2 Consumptisque cibis quos ex Ægypto detulerant, dixit Jacob ad filios suos: Revertimini, et emite nobis pauxillum escarum. 3 Respondit Judas: Denuntiavit nobis vir ille sub attestatione jurisjurandi, dicens: Non videbitis faciem meam, nisi fratrem vestrum minimum adduxeritis vobiscum.
[43] 1 Meanwhile the famine was pressing all the land vehemently. 2 And when the provisions which they had brought from Egypt were consumed, Jacob said to his sons: Return, and buy for us a small amount of victuals. 3 Judah replied: That man warned us under the attestation of an oath, saying: You shall not see my face, unless you bring your youngest brother with you.
4 Therefore if you are willing to send him with us, we will go forth together, and we will buy for you the necessities: 5 but if you are not willing, we will not go: for the man, as we have often said, gave notice to us, saying: You shall not see my face without your youngest brother. 6 Israel said to them: You have done this to my misery, that you should indicate to him that you have another brother. 7 But they answered: The man questioned us in order about our progeny: whether our father lived: whether we had a brother: and we answered him accordingly, according to that which had been inquired: could we have known that he would say: Bring your brother with you ? 8 Judas also said to his father: Send the boy with me, that we may set out, and that we may be able to live: lest we die, both we and our little ones.
9 I myself take on the boy: from my hand require him: unless I bring him back and restore him to you, I will be guilty of sin against you at all times. 10 If delay had not interceded, by now we would have come a second time. 11 Therefore Israel their father said to them: If it is thus necessary, do what you will: take of the choicest fruits of the land in your vessels, and carry down gifts to the man, a little resin, and honey, and storax, stacte, and terebinth, and almonds.
12 Also carry double money with you; and that which you found in the sacks, bring back, lest perhaps it was done by mistake: 13 but also take your brother, and go to the man. 14 But my almighty God make him placable to you, and send back with you your brother whom he holds, and this Benjamin: but I, as though bereaved, shall be without children. 15 Therefore the men took the gifts, and double money, and Benjamin: and they went down into Egypt, and stood before Joseph.
16 When he had seen them and Benjamin together, he commanded the dispenser/steward of his house, saying: Introduce the men into the house, and slay the victims, and set up the convivium: for with me they are going to eat at midday. 17 He did what had been commanded to him, and introduced the men into the house. 18 And there, terrified, they said to one another: Because of the money which we brought back earlier in our sacks, we have been introduced, that he may cast upon us a calumny, and violently subject to servitude both us and our donkeys.
19 For which reason, approaching the steward of the house right at the very doors, 20 they spoke: We pray, sir, that you hear us. Already before we descended to buy provisions: 21 and these having been bought, when we came to the inn, we opened our sacks and found the money in the mouth of the sacks: which now with the same weight we have brought back. 22 But we have also brought other silver, in order to buy the things that are necessary for us: we are not aware who placed it in our money-bags.
23 But he responded: Peace be with you, do not fear: your God, and the God of your father, has given you treasures in your sacks: for the money which you gave me, I hold as approved. And he brought out Simeon to them. 24 And, with them brought into the house, he brought water, and they washed their feet, and he gave fodder to their asses.
25 But they were preparing gifts, until Joseph should enter at midday: for they had heard that there they would eat bread. 26 Therefore Joseph entered his house, and they offered him the gifts, holding them in their hands: and they bowed prostrate to the ground. 27 But he, having kindly returned their greeting, inquired of them, saying: Is your aged father safe, of whom you had spoken to me ? does he still live ? 28 Who answered: Your servant our father is safe; he still lives.
And they bowed down and adored him. 29 But Joseph, lifting up his eyes, saw Benjamin his uterine brother, and said: Is this your little brother, of whom you spoke to me ? And again: “May God,” he said, “have mercy on you, my son.” 30 And he hastened, because his viscera had been moved over his brother, and the tears were bursting forth: and going into the chamber he wept. 31 And again, his face washed, he went out, restrained himself, and said: Set out the loaves.
32 And when these were set before them, separately for Joseph, and separately for the brothers, and for the Egyptians also who were eating together, separately (for it is illicit for Egyptians to eat with Hebrews, and they consider a banquet of this kind profane) 33 they sat before him, the firstborn according to his primogeniture, and the youngest according to his age. And they marveled exceedingly, 34 after the portions which they had received from him were taken up; and the greater portion came to Benjamin, so that it exceeded by five portions. And they drank and became inebriated with him.
[44] 1 Præcepit autem Joseph dispensatori domus suæ, dicens: Imple saccos eorum frumento, quantum possunt capere: et pone pecuniam singulorum in summitate sacci. 2 Scyphum autem meum argenteum, et pretium quod dedit tritici, pone in ore sacci junioris. Factumque est ita.
[44] 1 But Joseph commanded the steward of his house, saying: Fill their sacks with grain, as much as they can hold; and put the money of each in the top of his sack. 2 And my silver scyphus (cup), and the price which he paid for the wheat, put in the mouth of the sack of the younger. And it was done so.
3 And with morning arisen, they were sent away with their asses. 4 And now they had gone out of the city, and had advanced a little: then Joseph, having summoned the steward of his house, said, Rise, and pursue the men: and when you have apprehended them, say: Why have you repaid evil for good ? 5 the scyphus which you have stolen—it is the very one in which my lord drinks, and in which he is wont to augur: you have done a most wicked thing. 6 He did as he had ordered: and, having apprehended them, he spoke in order.
7 They answered: Why does our lord speak thus, as if your servants had committed so great a crime? 8 The money which we found at the top of our sacks we brought back to you from the land of Canaan: and how is it consistent that we should have stolen from your lord’s house gold or silver? 9 With whomever of your servants what you seek shall be found, let him die, and we will be slaves of our lord. 10 He said to them: Let it be according to your sentence: with whomever it shall be found, he himself shall be my servant, but you will be guiltless. 11 Therefore, hastily setting the sacks down upon the ground, they each opened.
12 Having searched them, beginning from the eldest down to the youngest, he found the cup in Benjamin’s sack. 13 But they, with their garments torn, and their donkeys loaded again, returned to the town. 14 And Judah went in first with his brothers to Joseph (for he had not yet departed from the place), and they all together fell to the ground before him.
15 To whom he said: Why did you wish to act thus ? do you not know that there is none like me in the science of augury ? 16 To whom Judas said: What shall we answer, said he, to my lord ? or what shall we speak, or shall we be able to plead justly ? God has found the iniquity of your servants: behold, we all are servants of my lord, both we and he with whom the cup was found. 17 Joseph replied: Far be it from me to act thus: he who has stolen the cup, he himself shall be my servant: but you, go free to your father. 18 But Judas, drawing nearer, said confidently: I beg, my lord, let your servant speak a word in your ears, and be not angry with your slave: for you are, after Pharaoh, 19 my lord.
You first interrogated your servants: Do you have a father or a brother ? 20 and we responded to you, my lord: We have an aged father, and a little boy, who was born in his old age: whose uterine brother is dead: and his mother has him alone, but his father tenderly loves him. 21 And you said to your servants: Bring him to me, and I will set my eyes upon him. 22 We suggested to my lord: The boy cannot leave his father: for if he should leave him, he will die.
26 To whom we said: We cannot go: if our youngest brother descends with us, we will set out together: otherwise, with him absent, we do not dare to see the man’s face. 27 To which he replied: You know that my wife has begotten two to me. 28 One went out, and you said: A beast devoured him: and up to this point he does not appear.
29 If you take even this one, and anything should befall him on the way, you will bring down my gray hairs with sorrow to the underworld. 30 Therefore if I go in to your servant our father, and the boy is missing (since his soul hangs upon this one’s soul), 31 and he sees that he is not with us, he will die, and your servants will bring down his gray hairs with grief to the underworld. 32 I myself, your servant, am the one who became surety for him, and I pledged, saying: Unless I bring him back, I shall be guilty of sin to my father for all time.
[45] 1 Non se poterat ultra cohibere Joseph multis coram astantibus: unde præcepit ut egrederentur cuncti foras, et nullus interesset alienus agnitioni mutuæ. 2 Elevavitque vocem cum fletu, quam audierunt Ægyptii, omnisque domus Pharaonis. 3 Et dixit fratribus suis: Ego sum Joseph: adhuc pater meus vivit ? Non poterant respondere fratres nimio terrore perterriti. 4 Ad quos ille clementer: Accedite, inquit, ad me. Et cum accessissent prope: Ego sum, ait, Joseph, frater vester, quem vendidistis in Ægyptum.
[45] 1 Joseph could no longer restrain himself with many standing by; wherefore he ordered that all should go out, and that no outsider should be present at the mutual recognition. 2 And he raised his voice with weeping, which the Egyptians heard, and all the house of Pharaoh. 3 And he said to his brothers: I am Joseph: does my father still live? His brothers could not answer, overawed by excessive terror. 4 To whom he, gently: Come near, he said, to me. And when they had come near: I am, he said, Joseph, your brother, whom you sold into Egypt.
5 Do not be afraid, nor let it seem hard to you that you sold me into these regions: for God sent me before you into Egypt for your salvation. 6 For it is a biennium since the famine began in the land; and five years still remain, in which it will be possible neither to plow nor to reap. 7 And God has sent me ahead so that you may be preserved upon the earth, and may be able to have provisions for living.
8 Not by your counsel, but by God’s will was I sent here: who has made me as a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house, and a prince in all the land of Egypt. 9 Make haste, and go up to my father, and you shall say to him: These things your son Joseph commands: God has made me lord of all the land of Egypt; come down to me, do not delay, 10 and you shall dwell in the land of Goshen; and you shall be near me—you, and your sons, and your sons’ sons, your sheep, and your herds, and all that you possess: 11 and there I will sustain you (for there are still five years remaining of the famine), lest you too perish, you and your household, and all that you possess. 12 Behold, your eyes, and the eyes of my brother Benjamin, see that it is my own mouth that speaks to you.
13 Announce to my father all my glory, and all the things which you have seen in Egypt: make haste, and bring him to me. 14 And when, having embraced, he fell upon the neck of Benjamin his brother, he wept: he too likewise weeping upon his neck. 15 And Joseph kissed all his brothers, and wept over each one: after which they dared to speak to him. 16 And it was heard, and by celebrated report made public in the court of the king: The brothers of Joseph have come: and Pharaoh rejoiced, and all his household.
17 And he said to Joseph that he should command his brothers, saying: Loading your beasts of burden, go into the land of Canaan, 18 and take from there your father and your kin, and come to me: and I will give you all the good things of Egypt, that you may eat the marrow of the land. 19 Command also that they take wagons from the land of Egypt for the conveyance of their little ones and their wives: and say: Take your father, and hasten, coming as quickly as possible. 20 Nor leave behind anything of your household goods: because all the wealth of Egypt shall be yours. 21 And the sons of Israel did as it had been commanded to them.
To whom Joseph gave wagons, according to Pharaoh’s command, and provisions on the journey. 22 He also ordered two stoles apiece to be brought out; but to Benjamin he gave three hundred pieces of silver along with five choice stoles: 23 sending to his father the same amount of money and garments, and adding ten asses, which would carry from all the riches of Egypt, and just as many she-asses, bearing wheat for the journey and loaves. 24 He therefore dismissed his brothers, and as they set out he said: Do not be angry on the way.
[46] 1 Profectusque Israël cum omnibus quæ habebat, venit ad Puteum juramenti: et mactatis ibi victimis Deo patris sui Isaac, 2 audivit eum per visionem noctis vocantem se, et dicentem sibi: Jacob, Jacob. Cui respondit: Ecce adsum. 3 Ait illi Deus: Ego sum fortissimus Deus patris tui: noli timere, descende in Ægyptum, quia in gentem magnam faciam te ibi.
[46] 1 And Israel, having set out with all that he had, came to the Well of the Oath; and with victims there sacrificed to the God of his father Isaac, 2 he heard him, through a vision of the night, calling him and saying to him: Jacob, Jacob. He answered: Behold, I am here. 3 God said to him: I am the most mighty God of your father: do not fear; go down into Egypt, for I will make you there into a great nation.
4 I will go down with you there, and I will from there bring you back returning: Joseph also will place his hands over your eyes. 5 But Jacob arose from the Well of the Oath: and his sons took him, with their little ones and their wives, in the wagons which Pharaoh had sent to carry the old man, 6 and all that he had possessed in the land of Canaan: and he came into Egypt with all his seed, 7 his sons, and grandsons, daughters, and the whole progeny together. 8 These, moreover, are the names of the sons of Israel, who entered into Egypt, he himself with his children.
18 These are the sons of Zilpah, whom Laban gave to Leah his daughter: and these Jacob begot, sixteen souls. 19 The sons of Rachel, the wife of Jacob: Joseph and Benjamin. 20 And Joseph’s sons were born in the land of Egypt, whom Asenath, daughter of Potiphera, priest of Heliopolis, bore to him: Manasseh and Ephraim.
But the sons of Joseph, who were born to him in the land of Egypt, were two souls. All the souls of the house of Jacob, who entered into Egypt, were seventy. Moreover he sent Judah before him to Joseph, to announce to him, and that he might meet him in Goshen. When he had come there, Joseph, having yoked his chariot, went up to meet his father at that same place; and seeing him, he rushed upon his neck, and amid embraces wept.
30 And the father said to Joseph: Now let me die happy, because I have seen your face, and I leave you surviving. 31 But he spoke to his brothers and to the whole house of his father: I will go up and announce to Pharaoh, and I will say to him: My brothers and the house of my father, who were in the land of Canaan, have come to me: 32 and the men are shepherds of sheep, and they have the care of nurturing flocks: their flocks and their herds, and all that they were able to obtain, they have brought with them. 33 And when he calls you and says: What is your work? 34 you will answer: We, your servants, are men, shepherds, from our infancy up to the present, both we and our fathers.
[47] 1 Ingressus ergo Joseph nuntiavit Pharaoni, dicens: Pater meus et fratres, oves eorum et armenta, et cuncta quæ possident, venerunt de terra Chanaan: et ecce consistunt in terra Gessen. 2 Extremos quoque fratrum suorum quinque viros constituit coram rege: 3 quos ille interrogavit: Quid habetis operis ? Responderunt: Pastores ovium sumus servi tui, et nos et patres nostri. 4 Ad peregrinandum in terra tua venimus: quoniam non est herba gregibus servorum tuorum, ingravescente fame in terra Chanaan: petimusque ut esse nos jubeas servos tuos in terra Gessen.
[47] 1 Therefore Joseph, having entered, announced to Pharaoh, saying: My father and my brothers, their sheep and their herds, and all that they possess, have come from the land of Canaan; and behold, they are standing in the land of Goshen. 2 He also set five men from among his brothers before the king: 3 whom he questioned: What is your occupation? They answered: Your servants are shepherds of sheep, both we and our fathers. 4 To sojourn in your land we have come: since there is no grass for the flocks of your servants, with the famine growing severe in the land of Canaan; and we ask that you command that we, your servants, be in the land of Goshen.
5 The king therefore said to Joseph: Your father and your brothers have come to you. 6 The land of Egypt is before your sight: in the best place make them dwell, and hand over to them the land of Gessen. And if you know there to be industrious men among them, appoint them masters of my cattle. 7 After these things Joseph introduced his father to the king, and set him before him: who, blessing him, 8 and being asked by him: How many are the days of the years of your life? 9 answered: The days of my peregrination are one hundred and thirty years, few and evil, and they have not reached unto the days of my fathers in which they peregrinated.
13 For in the whole world bread was lacking, and famine oppressed the land, especially of Egypt and Canaan. 14 From these he gathered all the money for the sale of grain, and brought it into the treasury of the king. 15 And when the price had failed for the buyers, all Egypt came to Joseph, saying: Give us bread: why do we die before you, with the money failing ? 16 To whom he replied: Bring your cattle, and I will give you food in exchange for them, if you do not have the price.
17 When they had brought them, he gave them provisions in exchange for horses, and sheep, and oxen, and donkeys: and he sustained them that year in exchange for the cattle. 18 They also came in the second year, and said to him: We will not conceal from our lord that, the money failing, the cattle likewise have failed: nor is it hidden from you that apart from our bodies and our land we have nothing. 19 Why then should we die before your eyes ? both we and our land will be yours: buy us into royal servitude, and provide seed, lest, the cultivator perishing, the land be reduced into desolation.
20 Therefore Joseph bought all the land of Egypt, each man selling his holdings because of the greatness of the famine. He subjected it to Pharaoh, 21 and [he subjected] all its peoples from the very last borders of Egypt to its farthest ends, 22 except the land of the priests, which had been handed over to them by the king: to whom fixed rations were also supplied from the public granaries, and therefore they were not compelled to sell their possessions. 23 Joseph therefore said to the peoples: Behold, as you perceive, Pharaoh possesses both you and your land; take seed, and sow the fields, 24 so that you may be able to have produce.
You shall give the fifth part to the king: the four remaining I permit to you for sowing, and for food for your families and your children. 25 They answered: Our safety is in your hand: only let our lord look upon us, and we will gladly serve the king. 26 From that time until the present day, in the whole land of Egypt a fifth part is paid to the kings, and it has been made, as it were, into a law, apart from the priestly land, which was free from this condition.
27 Therefore Israel dwelt in Egypt, that is, in the land of Goshen, and took possession of it: and he increased and was multiplied exceedingly. 28 And he lived in it seventeen years: and all the days of his life were one hundred forty-seven years. 29 And when he perceived the day of his death approaching, he called his son Joseph, and said to him: If I have found grace in your sight, place your hand under my thigh: and you will do with me mercy and truth, that you will not bury me in Egypt: 30 but that I may sleep with my fathers, and you will carry me out of this land, and lay me in the sepulcher of my elders.
[48] 1 His ita transactis, nuntiatum est Joseph quod ægrotaret pater suus: qui, assumptis duobus filiis Manasse et Ephraim, ire perrexit. 2 Dictumque est seni: Ecce filius tuus Joseph venit ad te. Qui confortatus sedit in lectulo. 3 Et ingresso ad se ait: Deus omnipotens apparuit mihi in Luza, quæ est in terra Chanaan: benedixitque mihi, 4 et ait: Ego te augebo et multiplicabo, et faciam te in turbas populorum: daboque tibi terram hanc, et semini tuo post te in possessionem sempiternam.
[48] 1 With these things thus transacted, it was announced to Joseph that his father was ill: who, having taken along his two sons Manasseh and Ephraim, proceeded to go. 2 And it was said to the old man: Behold, your son Joseph is coming to you. Who, strengthened, sat up on the bed. 3 And when he had come in to him he said: God Omnipotent appeared to me at Luz, which is in the land of Canaan: and he blessed me, 4 and said: I will increase you and multiply you, and I will make you into throngs of peoples: and I will give to you this land, and to your seed after you, as a sempiternal possession.
5 Therefore your two sons, who were born to you in the land of Egypt before I came here to you, shall be mine: Ephraim and Manasseh shall be reckoned to me like Reuben and Simeon. 6 But the others whom you beget after them shall be yours, and by the name of their brothers they shall be called in their own possessions. 7 For me, when I was coming from Mesopotamia, Rachel died in the land of Canaan on the very way; and it was springtime: and I was entering Ephrath, and I buried her beside the way of Ephrath, which by another name is called Bethlehem.
And when he had drawn them to himself, having kissed them and embraced them, 11 he said to his son: I have not been defrauded of your sight; moreover God has shown me your seed. 12 And when Joseph had taken them from his father’s lap, he bowed prone upon the ground. 13 And he placed Ephraim at his own right hand, that is, at Israël’s left; but Manasseh at his own left, namely at the father’s right, and he brought them both near to him.
14 And he, stretching out his right hand, placed it upon the head of Ephraim, the younger brother; but his left upon the head of Manasseh, who was elder by birth, crossing his hands. 15 And Jacob blessed the sons of Joseph and said: God, in whose sight my fathers Abraham and Isaac walked; God who pastures me from my adolescence even unto the present day; 16 the angel who drew me out of all evils, may he bless these boys; and let my name be invoked upon them, and likewise the names of my fathers Abraham and Isaac, and let them grow into a multitude upon the earth. 17 But Joseph, seeing that his father had placed his right hand upon the head of Ephraim, took it grievously; and he tried to lift his father’s hand from Ephraim’s head and to transfer it upon the head of Manasseh.
18 And he said to his father: Not so is it fitting, father; for this one is the firstborn—put your right hand upon his head. 19 But he, refusing, said: I know, my son, I know; and he too shall become a people, and he shall be multiplied; but his younger brother shall be greater than he, and his seed shall grow into nations. 20 And he blessed them at that time, saying: In you Israel will bless, and it will be said: May God make you like Ephraim and like Manasseh.
[49] 1 Vocavit autem Jacob filios suos, et ait eis: Congregamini, ut annuntiem quæ ventura sunt vobis in diebus novissimis. 2 Congregamini, et audite, filii Jacob, audite Israël patrem vestrum: 3 Ruben, primogenitus meus, tu fortitudo mea, et principium doloris mei; prior in donis, major in imperio. 4 Effusus es sicut aqua, non crescas: quia ascendisti cubile patris tui, et maculasti stratum ejus.
[49] 1 But Jacob called his sons, and said to them: Gather yourselves, that I may announce the things that are to come upon you in the last days. 2 Gather yourselves, and hear, sons of Jacob, hear Israel your father: 3 Reuben, my firstborn, you are my strength, and the beginning of my sorrow; prior in gifts, greater in command. 4 Poured out like water, you shall not excel: because you went up to your father’s bed, and you defiled his couch.
Simeon and Levi, brothers,
instruments of iniquity, warring. 6 Into their council let not my soul come,
and in their assembly let not my glory be:
for in their fury they slew a man,
and in their will they undermined a wall. 7 Cursed be their fury, for it is pertinacious;
and their indignation, for it is hard:
I will divide them in Jacob,
and scatter them in Israel.
8 Judah, you—your brothers shall praise you:
your hand upon the necks of your enemies,
the sons of your father will bow down to you.
9 A whelp of a lion is Judah: to the prey, my son, you have gone up: resting you have couched like a lion, and like a lioness: who will rouse him? 10 The scepter shall not be taken away from Judah, nor the leader from his thigh, until he comes who is to be sent, and he shall be the expectation of the nations. 11 Binding his foal to the vine, and to the vine, O my son, his she-ass, he will wash his garment in wine and his mantle in the blood of the grape. 12 His eyes are more beautiful than wine, and his teeth whiter than milk.
16 Dan will judge his people
as also one of the tribes in Israel.
17 Let Dan be a serpent on the way,
a horned serpent on the path,
biting the horse’s heels,
so that its rider falls backward. 18 I will await your salvation, O Lord. 19 Gad, girded, will do battle before him:
and he himself will be girded to the rear.
23 But they exasperated him and quarreled,
and those bearing javelins envied him. 24 His bow sat in strength,
and the bonds of his arms and hands were loosened
through the hands of the Mighty One of Jacob:
thence went forth a shepherd, the stone of Israel.
25 The God of your father will be your helper,
and the Almighty will bless you
with blessings of heaven from above, blessings of the abyss lying below,
blessings of the breasts and of the womb.
26 The blessings of your father have been fortified by the blessings of his fathers,
until the desire of the eternal hills should come:
let them be upon the head of Joseph,
and upon the crown of the Nazirite among his brothers. 27 Benjamin a rapacious wolf,
in the morning let him devour prey,
and in the evening he will divide spoils.
28 All these are the twelve in the tribes of Israel: these things their father spoke to them, and he blessed each with his own proper blessings. 29 And he commanded them, saying: I am being gathered to my people: bury me with my fathers in the double cave which is in the field of Ephron the Hittite, 30 opposite Mamre in the land of Canaan, which Abraham bought with the field from Ephron the Hittite as a possession of a sepulcher. 31 There they buried him, and Sarah his wife: there Isaac was buried with Rebecca his spouse: there also Leah lies interred.
[50] 1 Quod cernens Joseph, ruit super faciem patris, flens et deosculans eum. 2 Præcepitque servis suis medicis ut aromatibus condirent patrem. 3 Quibus jussa explentibus, transierunt quadraginta dies: iste quippe mos erat cadaverum conditorum: flevitque eum Ægyptus septuaginta diebus.
[50] 1 Seeing this, Joseph fell upon his father’s face, weeping and kissing him. 2 And he commanded his servants, the physicians, to embalm his father with aromatics. 3 And as they carried out the orders, forty days passed: for this indeed was the custom of the embalmers of corpses: and Egypt wept for him for seventy days.
4 And when the time of lamentation was completed, Joseph spoke to the household of Pharaoh: If I have found favor in your sight, speak in the ears of Pharaoh: 5 that my father has adjured me, saying: Behold, I am dying: in my sepulcher, which I dug for myself in the land of Canaan, you shall bury me. I will go up, therefore, and will bury my father, and I will return. 6 And Pharaoh said to him: Go up, and bury your father as you have been adjured. 7 When he went up, all the elders of the house of Pharaoh went with him, and all the elders of the land of Egypt: 8 the house of Joseph with his brothers, apart from the little ones, and the flocks and herds, which they had left in the land of Goshen. 9 He had also in the retinue chariots and horsemen: and a crowd not small was made.
10 And they came to the Threshing-floor of Atad, which is situated across the Jordan: where, celebrating the exequies with great and vehement lamentation, they completed seven days. 11 Which when the inhabitants of the land of Canaan had seen, they said: This is a great mourning for the Egyptians. And therefore the name of that place was called, Mourning of Egypt.
12 Therefore the sons of Jacob did as he had commanded them: 13 and carrying him into the land of Canaan, they buried him in the double cave, which Abraham had bought with the field as a possession for a sepulchre from Ephron the Hittite, facing Mamre. 14 And Joseph returned to Egypt with his brothers, and the whole retinue, his father having been buried. 15 He being dead, his brothers, fearing and conversing mutually: Lest perhaps he be mindful of the injury which he suffered, and repay to us all the evil that we did, 16 they sent word to him, saying: Your father charged us before he died, 17 that we should say to you in his very words: I beseech you to forget the crime of your brothers, and the sin and the malice which they exercised against you: we also pray that you remit this iniquity to the servants of the God of your father.
On hearing these things Joseph wept. 18 And his brothers came to him: and, bowing prone to the ground, they said: We are your servants. 19 And he replied to them: Do not fear: can we resist the will of God ? 20 You cogitated evil concerning me: but God turned it into good, in order to exalt me, as you see at present, and to save many peoples.
Also the sons of Machir, the son of Manasseh, were born upon Joseph’s knees. 23 When these things had been completed, he spoke to his brothers: After my death God will visit you, and he will make you ascend from this land to the land which he swore to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. 24 And when he had adjured them and had said: God will visit you, carry off my bones with you from this place: 25 he died, with one hundred ten years of his life completed.