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Testament of Levi

Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs

About this book
Chapter 9

1 And after two days Judah and I went up with our father Jacob to Isaac our grandfather. 2 And my grandfather blessed me according to all the words of the visions I had seen. 3 And he would not come with us to Bethel. 4 And when we came to Bethel, my father saw a vision concerning me, that I should be their priest to God.⁠ 5 And he rose early in the morning and paid tithes of everything to the Lord through me. 6 And so we came to Hebron to live there. 7 And Isaac called me continually to remind me of the law of the Lord, just as the angel of the Lord showed to me. 8 And he taught me the law of the priesthood, of sacrifices, whole burnt offerings, first fruits, freewill offerings, peace offerings. 9 And each day he was instructing me and was busy on my behalf before the Lord, and said to me: “Beware of the spirit of sexual immorality; for it will continue and will by your descendants pollute the holy place.” 10 “Take, therefore, for yourself a wife without blemish or corruption, while you are still young, and not from the lineage of foreign nations. 11 And before entering the holy place, bathe; and when you offer the sacrifices, wash; and again, when you finish the sacrifice, wash. Of twelve trees having leaves, offer to the Lord,⁠ as Abraham also taught me. 12 And of every clean beast and bird, offer a sacrifice to the Lord. 13 And of all your first fruits and of wine, offer the first as a sacrifice to the Lord God; and every sacrifice you shall salt with salt.”

Texts in conversation

Compare Testament of Levi 9:3 and Wisdom of Solomon 10:10

Pseudepigrapha, Testaments · Deuterocanon

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Summary

Genesis 28 shows Jacob dreaming of a ziggurat with angels going up and down. Later traditions view it differently: the Testament of Levi sees it as a vision of Levi’s priestly role, and the Wisdom of Solomon says it's Wisdom revealing God’s kingdom.

Passages

Testament of Levi 9:3

Pseudepigrapha, Testaments · Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs
1 And after two days Judah and I went up with our father Jacob to Isaac our grandfather. 2 And my grandfather blessed me according to all the words of the visions I had seen. 3 And he would not come with us to Bethel. 4 And when we came to Bethel, my father saw a vision concerning me, that I should be their priest to God. 5 And he rose early in the morning and paid tithes of everything to the Lord through me.
100 BCE – 100 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in the Testament of Levi

Wisdom of Solomon 10:10

Deuterocanon
8 For having passed wisdom by, not only were they disabled from recognising the things which are good, but they also left behind them for their life a monument of their folly, so that where they stumbled, they might fail even to be unseen; 9 but wisdom delivered those who waited on her out of troubles. 10 When a righteous man was a fugitive from a brother’s wrath, wisdom guided him in straight paths. She showed him God’s kingdom, and gave him knowledge of holy things. She prospered him in his toils, and multiplied the fruits of his labor. 11 When in their covetousness men dealt harshly with him, she stood by him and made him rich. 12 She guarded him from enemies, and she kept him safe from those who lay in wait. Over his severe conflict, she watched as judge, that he might know that godliness is more powerful than every one.
50 BCE – 50 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in the Wisdom of Solomon

References

"... Verse 10 concerns Jacob's dream during his sojourn in Bethel as recounted in Genesis 28:10-17. In these cola Wisdom's revelatory and instructional role is highlighted in chapter 10. She shows Jacob the kingdom of God and gives him knowledge of holy things (the same two verbs occur in proximity in verse 14). The two lines can be read as exhibiting synonymous parallelism, that is, the revelation of God's kingdom is equivalent to the giving of supernatural knowledge. The phrase 'kingdom of God,' is hapax in the Septuagint, and it is difficult to know its exact meaning in this context. It most likely refers to the angels ascending and descending on the ladder reaching to heaven that Jacob sees in his dream (Genesis 28:12). From his vision, Jacob gains an understanding of how God's realm functions. The following colon is probably related to this understanding. There are several ways to interpret the term. First, the word could mean 'holy ones,' referring to the angels that Jacob saw. Second, it might refer to the heavenly sanctuary and thus reflect a tradition found in Testament of Levi 9:3. In this pseudepigraphal text, Jacob has a vision concerning Levi. According to Eric Burrows, not only might the term in Wisdom of Solomon 10:10 refer to the 'privileges of Levi' as high priest as cited in Testament of Levi 9:3, but it is also a likely reference to the heavenly sanctuary ..."
Andrew T. Glicksman, Wisdom of Solomon 10: A Jewish Hellenistic Reinterpretation of Early Israelite History through Sapiential Lenses, DCLS 9 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2011), 124–125.

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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Testament of Levi 9:3 and Wisdom of Solomon 10:10

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