Rebecca's admonition to Jacob and his reply, 1-8. Rebecca asks Isaac to make Esau swear that he
will not injure Jacob, 9-12. Isaac consents, 13-17. Esau takes the oath and likewise Jacob,
18-26. Death of Rebecca, 27.
[Chapter 35]
- And in the first year of the first week of the forty-fifth jubilee [2157 A.M.] Rebecca
called Jacob, her son, and commanded him regarding his father and regarding his brother, that he
should honour them all the
days of his life.
- And Jacob said: 'I will do everything as thou hast commanded me; for
this thing will be honour and greatness to me, and righteousness before the Lord, that I should
honour them.
- And thou too, mother, knowest from the time I was born until this day, all my deeds and
all that is in
my heart, that I always think good concerning all.
- And how should I not do this thing
which thou
hast commanded me, that I should honour my father and my brother!
- Tell me, mother,
what
perversity hast thou seen in me and I shall turn away from it, and mercy will be upon
me.'
- And she said unto him: 'My son, I have not seen in thee all my days any perverse but (only)
upright deeds. And yet I will tell thee the truth, my son: I shall die this year, and I shall not
survive this year in my life; for I have seen in a dream the day of my death, that I should not live
beyond a hundred and fifty-five years: and behold I have completed all the days of my life which I
am to
live.'
- And Jacob laughed at the words of his mother. because his mother had said unto
him that she should die; and she was sitting opposite to him in possession of her strength, and she
was not infirm in her strength; for she went in and out and saw, and her teeth were strong, and no
ailment
had touched her all the days of her life.
- And Jacob said unto her: 'Blessed am I, mother,
if my days approach the days of thy life, and my strength remain with me thus as thy strength: and
thou
wilt not die, for thou art jesting idly with me regarding thy death.'
- And she went in to
Isaac and said unto him: 'One petition I make unto thee: make Esau swear that he will not injure
Jacob, nor pursue him with enmity; for thou knowest Esau's thoughts that they are perverse from
his youth,
and there is no goodness in him; for he desires after thy death to kill him.
- And thou
knowest all that he has done since the day Jacob his brother went to Haran until this day: how he
has forsaken us with his whole heart, and has done evil to us; thy flocks he has taken to himself,
and carried off
all thy possessions from before thy face.
- And when we implored and besought him for
what was
our own, he did as a man who was taking pity on us.
- And he is bitter against thee
because thou didst bless Jacob thy perfect and upright son; for there is no evil but only goodness
in him, and since he came from Haran unto this day he has not robbed us of aught, for he brings
us everything in its season always, and rejoices with all his heart when we take at his hands and he
blesses us, and has not parted from us since he came from Haran until this day, and he remains
with us continually
at home honouring us.'
- And Isaac said unto her: 'I, too, know and see the deeds of
Jacob who is with us, how that with all his heart he honours us; but I loved Esau formerly more
than Jacob, because he was the firstborn; but now I love Jacob more than Esau, for he has done
manifold evil deeds, and there is no righteousness in him, for all his ways are unrighteousness and
violence, [and
there is no righteousness around him.]
- And now my heart is troubled because of all his
deeds, and neither he nor his seed is to be saved, for they are those who will be destroyed from
the earth and who will be rooted out from under heaven, for he has forsaken the God of Abraham
and gone
after his wives and after their uncleanness and after their error, he and his children.
- And thou dost bid me make him swear that he will not slay Jacob his brother; even if he swear he
will not abide
by his oath, and he will not do good but evil only.
- But if he desires to slay Jacob, his
brother, into Jacob's hands will he be given, and he will not escape from his hands, [for he will
descend into his
hands.]
- And fear thou not on account of Jacob; for the guardian of Jacob is great and
powerful
and honoured, and praised more than the guardian of Esau.'
- And Rebecca sent and
called Esau and he came to her, and she said unto him: 'I have a petition, my son, to make unto
thee, and do
thou promise to do it, my son.'
- And he said: 'I will do everything that thou sayest unto
me, and
I will not refuse thy petition.'
- And she said unto him: 'I ask you that the day I die, thou
wilt take me in and bury me near Sarah, thy father's mother, and that thou and Jacob will love
each other and that neither will desire evil against the other, but mutual love only, and (so) ye will
prosper, my sons, and be honoured in the midst of the land, and no enemy will rejoice over you,
and ye will be
a blessing and a mercy in the eyes of all those that love you.'
- And he said: 'I will do all
that thou hast told me, and I shall bury thee on the day thou diest near Sarah, my father's mother,
as
thou hast desired that her bones may be near thy bones.
- And Jacob, my brother, also, I
shall love above all flesh; for I have not a brother in all the earth but him only: and this is no great
merit for me if I love him; for he is my brother, and we were sown together in thy body, and
together came
we forth from thy womb, and if I do not love my brother, whom shall I love?
- And I,
myself, beg thee to exhort Jacob concerning me and concerning my sons, for I know that he will
assuredly be king over me and my sons, for on the day my father blessed him he made him the
higher and me
the lower.
- And I swear unto thee that I shall love him, and not desire evil against him
all the
days of my life but good only.'
- And he sware unto her regarding all this matter. And
she called Jacob before the eyes of Esau, and gave him commandment according to the words
which
she had spoken to Esau.
- And he said: 'I shall do thy pleasure; believe me that no evil
will proceed from me or from my sons against Esau, and I shall be first in naught save in love
only.'
- And they eat and drank, she and her sons that night, and she died, three jubilees and
one week and one year old, on that night, and her two sons, Esau and Jacob, buried her in the
double cave near Sarah, their father's mother.
Chapter: 1 | 2 | 3 |
4 | 5 | 6 | 7 |
8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 |
14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 |
20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 |
26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 |
32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 |
38 | 39 | 40 | 41 | 42 | 43 |
44 | 45 | 46 | 47 | 48 | 49 |
50
From The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament
by R.H. Charles, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1913
Scanned and Edited by Joshua Williams, Northwest Nazarene College