“Now look again in the picture, who it is wh o seduced Eve and what is the fruit of the tree, [and]4 thou wilt know what there shall be, and h ow it shall be to thy seed5 6among the people at the end of the days of the age,6 and so far as thou canst not understand I will make known to thee, for thou art well-pleasing in my sight, and I will tell thee wh at is kept in my heart.” And I looked into the picture, and mine eyes ran to the side of the Garden of Eden. And I saw there a man very great in height and fearful in breadth, incomparable in aspect,7 embracing a woman, who likewise approximated to the aspect and shape of the man. And they were 8 standing under a tree of (the Garden of) Eden, and the fruit of this tree9 was like the appearance of a bunch of grapes of the vine,10 and behind the tree was standing as it were a
Lit. prepared. Of the peoples on the left side, wh o r ep resent th e heathen world as opposed to the Jews, some are to be spared at the final judgement, while the rest will be annih ilated; cf. Ap. Bar. l x x i i, 2, where it is said of the Me ss i ah t h a t he will summon all the nations, and some of them He will spare, and some of them He will slay. Sometimes (as in 4 Ezr a x i i i. 37 ff.) the wh ole heathen world is doom ed to annih ilation, and this view i s v e r y pr ominent in later Judaism. The idea of our text accords with the older view based upon such passages as Ps. lxxii. 1 1, 1 7; Is. lxvi. 12, 19-21 (cf. Psalms of Solomon, xvii. 34). Notice that our passage says nothing about the Messiah in this connexion. 4 Cf. chap. xx. note 6 S omits. 6 So A K, reading s meni; S has to thy name (reading imeni). So S; but A K omit. Adam’s great stature is often referred to in Rabbinical literature: “it reached” (when he was first created) “from one en d o f the world to th e other,” but when he sinned it was diminished (T. B. Hag. 12a); his manly beauty is also referred to T. B. Baba mesia 84a). 9 K, + both. Cf. Gen. iii. 6. Cf. T. B. Berakoth 40a, where it is recorded that R. Meir declared th at the tree of which A dam ate was a vine, because the one thing that brings woe upon mankind is wine; cf. Gen. ix. 21 (“A nd h e drank of the wine and was drunken”). S o al s o the Greek, Ap. Bar. iv. 8 (cf. Sanh. 70a, Bereshith rabba xix. 8). The usual opinion was that the tree was a fig-tree; according to another view (G en. rabba x i. 8) the fruit was b arl ey; an other (Samuel ben Isaac) a date. With this last agrees the varia lectio of A K here (“palm-tree”).
serpent in form, having hands and feet like a man’s,1 and wings on its shoulders, six2 on the right side and six2 on the left,3 and they were holding the grapes of the tree 4in their hands,4 and both were eating it whom I had seen embracing. And I said: “Who are these mutually embracing, or who is this who is between them, or what is the fruit which they are eating, O Mighty Eternal One?” And He said: “This is 5the human world,5 this is Adam, and this is their desire upon the earth, this is Eve; but he who is between them representeth ungodliness, their beginning (on the way) to perdition, even Azazel.”6 And I said: “O Eternal, Mighty One! Why hast Thou given to such power to destroy the generation of men in their works upon the earth?” And He said to me: “They who will (to do) evil—and how much I hated (it) in those who do it!—over them I gave him power, and to be beloved of them.”7 And I answered and said: “O Eternal, Mighty One! Wherefore hast Thou willed to effect that evil should be desired in the hearts of men, since Thou indeed art angered over that which was willed by Thee, at him who is doing what is unprofitable in thy counsel8?”