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Apocalypse of Abraham

About this book

The Gathering of Israel

Chapter 31

1 "And then I will sound the trumpet from the air, and will send my Chosen One, with one measure of all my power in him; and he will summon my despised people from the nations,⁠ 2 and I will burn with fire those who have insulted them and who have ruled among them in (this) Age. And I will hand those who have mocked me over to the scorn of the coming Age; 3 and I have prepared them to be food for the fire of Hades and for endless flight back and forth through the air in the underworld beneath the earth [the body filled with worms. 4 For the Creator's righteousness will be seen in them by those who have chosen to do my will, and those who have openly obeyed my commandments, (and) they will be joyful at the downfall of the people who remain,⁠ 5 who have followed the idols and their murders. For they will rot in the body of the evil worm Azazel, and be burned with the fire of Azazel's tongue; 6 for I waited for them to come to me, but they refused, 7 and they praised the foreign (god),⁠ 8 and they attached themselves to him, to whom they had not been assigned, and they have abandoned the mighty Lord."

Texts in conversation

Compare Isaiah 66:24 and Apocalypse of Abraham 31:4

Hebrew Bible · Pseudepigrapha, Apocalypses

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Summary

In Isaiah, those who worship God go out and look at the bodies of the rebels, lying scattered on the ground after a battle. In the Apocalypse of Abraham, the righteous see a similar punishment fall on idolaters and rejoice over their destruction.

Passages

Isaiah 66:24

Hebrew Bible
21 And I will choose some of them as priests and Levites,” says the Lord. 22 “For just as the new heavens and the new earth I am about to make will remain standing before me,” says the Lord, “so your descendants and your name will remain. 23 From one month to the next and from one Sabbath to the next, all people will come to worship me,” says the Lord. 24 “They will go out and observe the corpses of those who rebelled against me, for the maggots that eat them will not die, and the fire that consumes them will not die out. All people will find the sight abhorrent.”
740–450 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Isaiah

Apocalypse of Abraham 31:4

Pseudepigrapha, Apocalypses
4 For the Creator's righteousness will be seen in them by those who have chosen to do my will, and those who have openly obeyed my commandments, (and) they will be joyful at the downfall of the people who remain, 5 who have followed the idols and their murders. For they will rot in the body of the evil worm Azazel, and be burned with the fire of Azazel's tongue; 6 for I waited for them to come to me, but they refused, 7 and they praised the foreign (god), 8 and they attached themselves to him, to whom they had not been assigned, and they have abandoned the mighty Lord."
70–150 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in the Apocalypse of Abraham

References

“... In Judith xvi. 17 “fire and worms” await the heathen enemies of Israel; cf. Ecclus. vii. 17, 1 Enoch xlvi. 6 (“darkness will be their dwelling and worms their bed”), Is. lxvi. 24. Here renegade Jews are probably meant. [...] Cf. Is. lxvi. 24, 4 Ezra vii. 93. [...] The renegade Jews here referred to are described as idolaters (cf. Ezek. xx. 16, Jer. vii. 9); and the righteous rejoice over their “downfall”; cf. 1 Enoch lvi. 8 (“Sheol will devour the sinners in the presence of the elect”), xciv. 10 (“Your creator will rejoice at your destruction”), xcvii. 2 (“the angels rejoice” over it), Is. lxvi. 24. ...”
G. H. Box with J. I. Landsman, The Apocalypse of Abraham (London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1918), PDF 54–55.

References are not endorsements of their contents. Read each reference in full to understand its author's intentions in using these texts.

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Isaiah 66:24 and Apocalypse of Abraham 31:4

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