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2 Baruch says Leviathan and Behemoth will appear in the messianic age as food for the righteous. This follows a tradition where these creatures are revealed at the end and may reflect an early form of an Aramaic tradition in the Targum of Psalm 50.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
2 Baruch 29:4
Syriac Apocalypse of Baruch
Pseudepigrapha, Apocalypses
2 For at that time I will protect only those who are found in those self-same days in this land. 3 And it shall come to pass when all is accomplished that was to come to pass in those parts, that the Messiah shall then begin to be revealed. 4 And Behemoth shall be revealed from his place and Leviathan shall ascend from the sea, those two great monsters which I created on the fifth day of creation, and have kept until that time; and then they shall be for food for all that are left. 5 The earth also shall yield its fruit ten thousandfold and on each vine there shall be a thousand branches, and each branch shall produce a thousand clusters, and each cluster produce a thousand grapes, and each grape produce a cor of wine. 6 And those who have hungered shall rejoice: moreover, also, they shall behold marvels every day.
Date: 70–135 CE (based on scholarly estimates)
Targum Psalms 50:10
Targum
8 I am not rebuking you on account of your sacrifices that you did not offer before me in exile, for your holocausts that your fathers offered are in front of me always. 9 From the day that my sanctuary was laid waste, I have not accepted a bull from your hands, or rams from your flock. 10 For mine are all the animals of the forest, and I have prepared for the righteous in the Garden of Eden clean beasts and a wild bull who grazes every day on a thousand mountains. 11 Manifest before me are all the kinds of birds who fly in the air of heaven; and the rooster whose legs rest on the earth, while his head reaches to heaven, rejoicing before me. 12 If the time of the continual morning sacrifice should arrive, I would not tell you; for mine is the earth and its fullness.
Date: 200–600 CE (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
“... The first source of food that benefits the remnant is meat. Behemoth will be revealed “from his place” (men atreh) and Leviathan will emerge from the sea (29:4). According to 2Bar. 29:4, these two monsters (tanine) have been kept until the end to become food (mekultā) for the remnant. 2Baruch thus describes Behemoth and Leviathan explicitly as sources of nutrition. 4Ezra 6:49–52, 1 En. 60:7–9, 24–25, and the Lev Rab. 13:3 confirm the destiny of Behemoth and Leviathan. These accounts all claim that the two primordial monsters were preserved for nutrition purposes. [...] Leviathan is described explicitly as food in Pss 74:12–14 and 104:26–27. Cf. Leviathan as nutrition for the righteous in b. B. Bat. 75a; b. Pesaḥ 119b. Cf. also Gen 1:21; Targum Ps 50:10 and Pirqe R. El. 11 ...”
Liv Ingeborg Lied, The Other Lands of Israel: Imaginations of the Land in 2 Baruch, JSJSup 129 (Leiden: Brill, 2008), 213.
* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.
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