Texts in Conversation
Exodus 23 gives God's guiding angel authority because God's name is within him. The Apocalypse of Abraham echoes this explanation in Jaoel, whose power comes from the divine name dwelling in him as he guides Abraham toward heaven.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Exodus 23:21
Hebrew Bible
21 Take heed because of him, and obey his voice; do not rebel against him, for he will not pardon your transgressions, for my Name is in him. 22 But if you diligently obey him and do all that I command, then I will be an enemy to your enemies, and I will be an adversary to your adversaries. 23 For my angel will go before you and bring you to the Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Canaanites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, and I will destroy them completely. 24 “You must not bow down to their gods; you must not serve them or do according to their practices. Instead you must completely overthrow them and smash their standing stones to pieces.
Apocalypse of Abraham 10:8
Pseudepigrapha, Apocalypses
6 For, behold! I have been sent to you to strengthen you and bless you in the name of God — who loves you — the Creator of the celestial and terrestrial. 7 Be fearless and hasten to Him. 8 I am called Jaoel by Him who moves that which exists with me on the seventh expanse upon the firmament, a power in virtue of the ineffable Name that is dwelling in me. 9 I am the one who has been given to restrain, according to His commandment, the threatening attack of the living creatures of the Cherubim against one another, and teach those who carry Him the song of the seventh hour of the night of man. 10 I am ordained to restrain the Leviathan, for to me are subject the attack and menace of every single reptile.
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Notes and References
“... This interpretation corre-
sponds to the meaning of Yahoel that is a combination of God’s names. See B. Sanh. 38b (based
on Exod. 23:20–21). Yahoel and Metatron, whose functions are very similar, are explicitly iden-
tified in 3 En. 48D:1.32 Cf. Apoc. Ab. 10:8 and comments there. ...”
Kulik, Alexander
"Apocalypse of Abraham" in Louis H. Feldman, James L. Kugel, and Lawrence H. Schiffman (eds.) Outside the Bible: Ancient Jewish Writings Related to Scripture
(p. 1463) The Jewish Publication Society, 2013
* 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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