Texts in Conversation
The Greek Septuagint translation of Exodus 25 gives the size of the tabernacle table and says it is pure gold. The Letter of Aristeas has Ptolemy build his gift table to the same measurements, using close but not exact Greek phrases from Exodus.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
LXX Exodus 25:23
Septuagint
23 And you shall make a table of pure gold, in length two cubits, and in breadth a cubit, and in height a cubit and a half. 24 And you shall make for it golden wreaths twisted round about. 25 And you shall make for it a crown of a hand-breadth round about, and you shall make a twisted wreath for the crown round about. 26 And you shall make four golden rings; and you shall put the four rings upon the four parts of its feet 27 under the crown; and the rings shall be for bearings for the staves, that they may bear the table with them. 28 And you shall make the staves of incorruptible wood, and you shall gild them with pure gold; and the table shall be borne with them.
Letter of Aristeas 1:57
Letter of Aristeas to Philocrates
Pseudepigrapha, Hebrew Bible Expansions
measure. At the same time he ordered them to press into service all the manifold forms of art, for he was a man of the most lofty conceptions and nature had endowed him with a keen imagination which enabled him to picture the appearance which would be presented by the finished work. He gave orders too, that where there were no instructions laid down in the Jewish Scriptures, everything should be made as beautiful as possible. When such instructions were laid down, they were to be carried out to the letter. They made the table two cubits long (one cubit broad) one and a half cubits high, fashioning it of pure solid gold. What I am describing was not thin gold laid over another foundation, but the whole
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Notes and References
“... The incorporation of scriptural detail from Chapter 25 of the book of Exodus into the lengthy ekphrasis, which describes the furniture made by the King as a gift to the High Priest, sums up well the double perspective of the Letter of Aristeas. [...] This passage includes some of the language of LXX Septuagint 25.23 and 26–8, on which (or a precursor of it) Aristeas is clearly dependent. ...”
Rajak, Tessa
Translation and Survival: The Greek Bible of the Ancient Jewish Diaspora
(p. 54) Oxford University Press, 2009
* 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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