1 They took my hand and lifted me into that boat,2 and thousands upon thousands and tens of thousands upon tens of thousands of angels began to sing before me.3 I too put on an angel's robe, and I saw all those angels praying.4 I too began to pray together with them, and I understood their language, which they spoke with me.5 So now, my sons, this is the contest in which the good and the evil are weighed on a scale.
Apocalypse of Zephaniah14 chapters
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Texts in conversation
Compare Apocalypse of Zephaniah 8:4 and 1 Corinthians 14:14
Pseudepigrapha, Apocalypses · New Testament
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Summary
In the Apocalypse of Zephaniah, the visionary puts on angelic clothing and prays with the angels in their own language. In 1 Corinthians, Paul similarly describes praying in a heavenly language not like any human language, which requires interpretation.
Passages
Apocalypse of Zephaniah 8:4
Pseudepigrapha, Apocalypses
1 They took my hand and lifted me into that boat,2 and thousands upon thousands and tens of thousands upon tens of thousands of angels began to sing before me.3 I too put on an angel's robe, and I saw all those angels praying.4 I too began to pray together with them, and I understood their language, which they spoke with me.5 So now, my sons, this is the contest in which the good and the evil are weighed on a scale.
13 So then, one who speaks in a tongue should pray that he may interpret.14If I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays, but my mind is unproductive.15 What should I do? I will pray with my spirit, but I will also pray with my mind. I will sing praises with my spirit, but I will also sing praises with my mind.16 Otherwise, if you are praising God with your spirit, how can someone without the gift say “Amen” to your thanksgiving, since he does not know what you are saying?17 For you are certainly giving thanks well, but the other person is not strengthened.
“... And even if the expression ‘speaking in tongues’ is used nowhere, in this line of development (or ‘trajectory’) T. Job 48-50 finds its natural place. This impression is confirmed when one sees that in the probably first-century Jewish Apocalypse of Zephaniah the visionary author reports an experience that comes very close to what we read in T. Job 48—50. In a vision he has been taken up into heaven and he sees myriads of angels in prayer. He puts on an angelic dress and joins them in their prayers in their own language, which he says he knew because they spoke to him in that language (Apoc. Zeph. 8.1—5). Praying in the language of the angels is, as appears from 1 Cor. 14.14—17 and probably Rom. 8.26—7, a glossolalic activity, and therefore most likely identical to the speaking or singing in angelic languages, the glossolalia, in T. Job 48—50. ...”
Pieter W. van der Horst, “Images of Women in the Testament of Job,” in Studies on the Testament of Job, ed. Michael A. Knibb and Pieter W. van der Horst, SNTSMS 66 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 111.
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