Jubilees 36:7

Pseudepigrapha

6 Remember ye, my sons, the Lord God of Abraham your father, and how I too worshipped Him and served Him in righteousness and in joy, that He might multiply you and increase your seed as the stars of heaven in multitude, and establish you on the earth as the plant of righteousness which will not be rooted out unto all the generations for ever. 7 And now I shall make you swear a great oath - for there is no oath which is greater than it by the name glorious and honoured and great and splendid and wonderful and mighty, which created the heavens and the earth and all things together - that ye will fear Him and worship Him.

1 Enoch 69:16

Pseudepigrapha

14 This angel requested Michael to reveal the hidden name so that he could declare it in the oath, causing those who revealed secrets to the children of men to tremble before it. 15 This is the power of this oath; it is mighty and strong, and was placed in the hand of Michael. 16 And these secrets are powerful through his oath: the heavens were suspended before the world was created and will be forever. 17 By this oath, the earth was founded upon water, and from the hidden recesses of the mountains come beautiful waters, from the creation of the world and unto eternity. 18 By this oath, the sea was created, and as its foundation, He set the sand to hold back its fury from the creation of the world unto eternity. 19 By this oath, the depths are made fast, remaining calm and undisturbed from eternity to eternity. 20 By this oath, the sun and moon complete their courses and do not deviate from their ordained paths from eternity to eternity.

 Notes and References

"... Personhood was divisible and permeable in the Hebrew Bible, and while there was diachronic and synchronic variation in certain details, the same is evident in the literature of Second Temple Judaism and early Christianity. This is most clear in the widespread understanding of the spirit and the soul (שׁפנ) – often used interchangeably – as the primary loci of a person’s agency or capacity to act. Both entities were usually considered primarily constitutive of a person’s identity, but also distinct from their physical body and capable of existence apart from it. The physical body could also be penetrated or overcome by external “spirits,” and such possession imposed the agency and capacities of the possessor. The God of Israel was largely patterned after this concept of personhood, and was similarly partible, with God’s glory (Hebrew: דובכ; Greek: δόξα), wisdom (המכח/σοφία), spirit (חור/πνεῦµα), word (רבד/λόγος), presence (הניכשׁ), and name (םשׁ/ὄνοµα) operating as autonomous and sometimes personified loci of agency that could presence the deity and also possess persons (or cultic objects) and/or endow them with special status or powers. The most important of these entities for the purposes of this paper is Yhwh’s name, which is credited with some of God’s most salient acts. For instance, Jubilees 36:7 and 1 Enoch 69:14-27 attribute the creation of the heavens and the earth to the activity of the divine name ..."

McClellan, Daniel Cognitive Perspectives on Early Christology (pp. 647-662) Biblical Interpretation, Vol. 25, 2017

 User Comments

Do you have questions or comments about these texts? Please submit them here.