What Naphtali Saw on a Ship in a Dream

Naphtali was a hundred and thirty-two years old when he gathered his children and told them he had nothing to leave them except the fear of God. He said this was an easy thing to carry. He was not being ironic.

The account in the ancient Testament of Naphtali opens with the old man's sons protesting that they had never strayed from his ways or their fathers' ways. Naphtali confirmed this and thanked God for it, but said he dreaded the future. He feared they would join the children of Joseph and drift from the children of Levi and Judah. His sons asked why he said this. He told them two visions, and the visions explained everything.

The first vision came when he was young and pasturing flocks. All twelve brothers were in the field together, and Jacob their father came and told them to each take hold of whatever they could reach. They looked around and saw only the sun, the moon, and the stars. Jacob said: take those. Levi grabbed a rod and jumped onto the sun and rode it. Judah did the same with the moon. The other nine brothers each mounted a star or a planet. Only Joseph remained on the ground.

Jacob asked Joseph why he had not done as his brothers. Joseph said: what use does a person born of woman have being in heaven, when in the end he must stand on the earth? While he was speaking, a winged bull appeared with horns like the reem, and Jacob told Joseph to mount it. Joseph rode the bull for hours, walking and running and flying, until he reached Judah. Then Joseph took the staff in his hands and began to beat Judah, demanding that Judah give him ten of his twelve rods. Judah refused. Joseph beat him until he had taken ten by force, leaving only two. Then Joseph called to the nine brothers who were riding their stars and told them to stop following Judah and Levi. They all came down. A storm broke at the end of the day and scattered everyone so that no two were left together.

Naphtali brought this vision to Jacob. Jacob said: it is only a dream, it will neither ascend nor descend. He dismissed it. Not long after, Naphtali saw the second.

In the full account on his deathbed, the family stood together at the shore of the sea. A ship sailed in the middle of the water with no sailor and no pilot. Jacob said: do you see what I see? When they said yes, he told them to follow him. He stripped off his clothes and dove into the sea, and they followed. Levi and Judah reached the ship first and climbed aboard. The inscription on the mast read: this ship and all the good therein belongs to the son of Berakhel, the one whom God had blessed. Jacob bowed and thanked God, then assigned each son a post: Levi on the big mast, Judah on the second mast, the brothers at the oars, Jacob himself at the rudders. Joseph alone refused to take an oar, and Jacob gave him a rudder instead.

The parallel account preserved in Ginzberg's version of the testament makes explicit what the apocryphal text implies: as long as Judah directed the ship and Joseph steered according to Judah's guidance, the vessel moved peacefully. When they quarreled and Joseph stopped following Judah's instructions out of jealousy, the ship struck a rock and foundered. All the brothers scrambled to shore. Jacob appeared, whistled them back, swam out, and raised the ship again. He reproved Joseph: my son, you will no longer deceive and be jealous of your brothers. They were nearly lost because of you.

When Naphtali brought this second vision to Jacob, the old man clapped his hands and wept and could not answer for a long while. When he spoke, he said: the repetition of your vision has made my heart sink. Both visions mean the same thing. You will be sent into captivity and scattered among the nations because of my son Joseph. I loved him above you all, and that is why this will happen to you.

On his deathbed, Naphtali had lived long enough to see both visions come true. The Egyptian captivity had happened. The scattering had begun. He told his children: do not join the sons of Joseph. Cling to Levi and Judah. He instructed them not to forget the God whom Abraham had chosen when the seventy nations of the earth were assigned their languages and their angels and Abraham alone had said: I choose only the one who spoke and the world was created. From that division of nations forward, every other family had its angel as mediator. Abraham's family had the Holy One directly.

His legacy was not gold or silver. It was two images carried for more than a century, the brothers on their stars and the ship going down, given to him as a warning that the most beloved son in the family was also the one whose jealousy would cost everyone everything.