Moses returns from Midian to Egypt. Mastêmâ seeks to slay him on the way, 1-3. The ten plagues,
4-11. Israel goes forth out of Egypt: the destruction of the Egyptians on the Red Sea, 12-19.
(Cf. Exod. ii.15; iv.19, 24; vii. seqq.)
[Chapter 48]
- And in the sixth year of the third week of the forty-ninth jubilee thou didst depart and
dwell <in [2372 A.M.] the land of Midian>, five weeks and one year. And thou didst return into
Egypt in the second week
in the second year in the fiftieth jubilee.
- And thou thyself knowest what He spake unto
thee on [2410 A.M.] Mount Sinai, and what prince Mastêmâ desired to do with thee when thou
wast returning into Egypt
<on the way when thou didst meet him at the lodging-place>.
- Did he not with all his
power seek to slay thee and deliver the Egyptians out of thy hand when he saw that thou wast
sent to execute
judgment and vengeance on the Egyptians?
- And I delivered thee out of his hand, and
thou didst perform the signs and wonders which thou wast sent to perform in Egypt against
Pharaoh, and
against all his house, and against his servants and his people.
- And the Lord executed a
great vengeance on them for Israel's sake, and smote them through (the plagues of) blood and
frogs, lice and dog-flies, and malignant boils breaking forth in blains; and their cattle by death; and
by hail-stones, thereby He destroyed everything that grew for them; and by locusts which
devoured the residue which had been left by the hail, and by darkness; and <by the death> of the
first-born of
men and animals, and on all their idols the Lord took vengeance and burned them with
fire.
- And everything was sent through thy hand, that thou shouldst declare (these things) before
they were done, and thou didst speak with the king of Egypt before all his servants and before his
people.
- And everything took place according to thy words; ten great and terrible judgments
came on the
land of Egypt that thou mightest execute vengeance on it for Israel.
- And the Lord did
everything for Israel's sake, and according to His covenant, which he had ordained with Abraham
that He
would take vengeance on them as they had brought them by force into bondage.
- And
the prince Mastêmâ stood up against thee, and sought to cast thee into the hands of Pharaoh, and
he helped
the Egyptian sorcerers,
- and they stood up and wrought before thee the evils indeed we
permitted
them to work, but the remedies we did not allow to be wrought by their hands.
- And
the Lord smote them with malignant ulcers, and they were not able to stand, for we destroyed
them so that
they could not perform a single sign.
- And notwithstanding all (these) signs and
wonders the prince Mastêmâ was not put to shame because he took courage and cried to the
Egyptians to pursue after thee with all the powers of the Egyptians, with their chariots, and with
their horses, and with all the
hosts of the peoples of Egypt.
- And I stood between the Egyptians and Israel, and we
delivered Israel out of his hand, and out of the hand of his people, and the Lord brought them
through the
midst of the sea as if it were dry land.
- And all the peoples whom he brought to pursue
after Israel, the Lord our God cast them into the midst of the sea, into the depths of the abyss
beneath the children of Israel, even as the people of Egypt had cast their children into the river He
took vengeance on 1,000,000 of them, and one thousand strong and energetic men were
destroyed on
account of one suckling of the children of thy people which they had thrown into the
river.
- And on the fourteenth day and on the fifteenth and on the sixteenth and on the seventeenth
and on the eighteenth the prince Mastêmâ was bound and imprisoned behind the children of Israel
that he
might not accuse them.
- And on the nineteenth we let them loose that they might help
the
Egyptians and pursue the children of Israel.
- And he hardened their hearts and made
them stubborn, and the device was devised by the Lord our God that He might smite the
Egyptians and
cast them into the sea.
- And on the fourteenth we bound him that he might not accuse
the children of Israel on the day when they asked the Egyptians for vessels and garments, vessels
of silver, and vessels of gold, and vessels of bronze, in order to despoil the Egyptians in return for
the bondage in
which they had forced them to serve.
- And we did not lead forth the children of Israel
from Egypt empty handed.
Chapter: 1 | 2 | 3 |
4 | 5 | 6 | 7 |
8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 |
14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 |
20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 |
26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 |
32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 |
38 | 39 | 40 | 41 | 42 | 43 |
44 | 45 | 46 | 47 | 48 | 49 |
50
From The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament
by R.H. Charles, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1913
Scanned and Edited by Joshua Williams, Northwest Nazarene College