Biblical Antiquities of Philo: The Biblical Antiquities of Philo: Chapter XXVI
CHAPTER XXVI.
XXVI. And when Cenez had taken all these words and written them in a book and read them before the Lord, God said to him: Take the men
1 by the new altar as the Lord had commanded him, and took a peace-offering and burnt-offerings, and offered upon the new altar 2000, offering them all for a burnt sacrifice. And on that day they kept a great feast, he and all the people together. 8. And God did that night as he spake unto Cenez, for he commanded a cloud, and it went and took dew from the ice of paradise and shed it upon the books and blotted them out. And after that an angel came and burned them up, and another angel took the precious stones and cast them into the heart of the sea, and he charged the depth of the sea, and it swallowed them up. And another angel went and brought twelve stones and laid them hard by the place whence he had taken those seven. And he graved thereon the names of the twelve tribes.
9. And Cenez arose on the morrow and found those twelve stones on the top of the mount where himself had laid those seven. And the graving
1 the graving was pierced, and it was from Mount Ophir, and therein was written the tribe of Gad, and an agate stone was likened unto it. And of the tenth stone the graving was hollowed, and gave the likeness of a stone of Theman, and there was written the tribe of Aser, and a chrysolite was likened unto it. And the eleventh stone was an elect stone from Libanus, and thereon was written the name of the tribe of Joseph, and a beryl was. likened to it. And the
1 (or the quarry), and upon it was written the tribe of Benjamin; and the onyx stone was likened unto it.
12. And God said to Cenez: Take these stones and put them in the ark of the covenant of the Lord with the tables of the covenant which I gave unto Moses in Oreb, and they shall be there with them until Jahel arise 2 to build an house in my name, and then he shall set them before me upon the two cherubim, and they shall be in my sight for a memorial of the house of Israel. 13. And it shall be when the sins of my people are filled up, and their enemies have the mastery over their house, that I will take these stones and the former together with the tables, and lay them up in the place whence they were brought forth in the beginning, and they shall be there until I remember the world, and visit the dwellers upon earth. And then will I take them and many other better than they, from that place which eye hath not seen3nor ear heard neither hath it come up into
155:1 XXVI. 7. superponens (ea in holocaustum). This is the word used in the old Latin of Lev. iv., etc, in the Würzburg palimpsest. The Lyons Pentateuch has inponens.
155:2 10. seq. The order of the stones agrees with that of Exod. 28:17 sqq., except that agate and amethyst are here transposed, and in the Hebrew carbuncle precedes emerald. The principle of the list seems to be that each of the new stones is "likened to" (should we render "placed opposite
156:1 11. (The 9th stone) pierced. I read terebrata, with R, for tenebrata.
157:1 11. (The 12th stone) cut out of the height of Sion. Again I prefer R's reading, de excelso Syon, to de excisione of AP.
157:2 12. until Jahel (Jabel R) shall arise. J substitutes Solomon in its paraphrase of the passage, and no doubt Solomon is meant; but I cannot find any other instance of this name being applied to him, or any reason for it. The Jael of judges iv. means a gazelle: Jael is also found as a name of God (Jah El) in the Greek Apoc. of Moses: neither helps us here. It can hardly be a corruption of Ἰεδδεδί, the Greek form of Jedidiah (2 Sam. 12:25).
157:3 13. from that place which eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it come up into the heart of man. This is a combination of phrases from Isa. 64:4; 65:16, 65:17. It is quoted in this form by St. Paul in 1 Cor. 2:9. Mr. Thackeray, in St. Paul and Contemporary Jewish Thought, p. 240 seq., discusses the source in the light of this passage, and concludes, I believe rightly, that the combination was already 158:1 15. there they are unto this day. See p. 63.