Texts in Conversation
In Genesis Rabbah, Abraham’s vision in Genesis 15 is expanded into a prophetic scene showing the final judgment. This echoes 4 Ezra, where Abraham receives revelations about secret knowledge. Both reshape his vision in early Jewish apocalyptic tradition.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
4 Ezra 3:14
2 Esdras
Pseudepigrapha, Apocalypses
12 “It came to pass that when those who lived upon the earth began to multiply, they also multiplied children, peoples, and many nations, and began again to be more ungodly than their ancestors. 13 It came to pass, when they did wickedly before you, you chose one from among them, whose name was Abraham. 14 You loved, and to him only you showed the end of the times secretly by night, 15 and made an everlasting covenant with him, promising him that you would never forsake his descendants. To him, you gave Isaac, and to Isaac you gave Jacob and Esau. 16 You set apart Jacob for yourself, but rejected Esau. Jacob became a great multitude.
Date: 70–132 CE (based on scholarly estimates)
Genesis Rabbah 44:21
Aggadah
Rabbinic
“It happened when the sun had set, that there was extreme darkness, and, behold, there was a smoking furnace, and a flaming torch that passed between those pieces” (Genesis 15:17). “It was when the sun had set, that there was extreme darkness [alata]” – there was a thick mist. “Behold, there was a smoking furnace, and a flaming torch” – Shimon bar Abba said in the name of Rabbi Yoḥanan: He [thereby] showed him four things: Gehenna; [the Four] Kingdoms; the giving of the Torah; and the Temple [service]. He said to him: ‘As long as your descendants are engaged in two [of these], they will be saved from [the other] two. If they deviate from the two, they will be sentenced with [the other] two.’ He said to him: ‘Through which do you wish your descendants to be punished, through Gehenna or through the Kingdoms?’ Rabbi Ḥanina bar Pappa said: Abraham chose the Kingdoms. Rabbi Yudan, Rabbi Idi, and Rabbi Ḥama bar Ḥanina said: Abraham chose Gehenna, but the Holy One blessed be He [demurred and] chose the Kingdoms on his behalf.
Date: 500 CE (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
"... interpreters came to a further conclusion: what was particularly trying about this incident was the fact that God had actually shown Abraham far more than the period of slavery in Egypt to be endured by his descendants. To begin with, if God had shown Abraham four hundred years of future history, it seemed logical to interpreters that He would have shown him the rest as well, including the punishment to be meted out to the later "nation[s] which they serve." Such a notion could only be supported by the text's mention of the "dread and great darkness falling" on Abraham (Genesis 15:12)—for certainly such dread ought not to have been caused merely by the sight of his descendants' sojourn in, and exodus from, Egypt. Interpreters therefore came to view this incident as a fully prophetic apocalypse in which Abraham was afforded a view of all of human history, of heaven and hell, and other things normally hidden from the sight of mere mortals ..."
James L. Kugel, The Bible as It Was (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998), 169.
* 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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