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When Ptolemy Asked Jerusalem for the Torah

Ptolemy sends a jeweled table to Jerusalem, Eleazar dresses in the high priestly robes, and seventy-two scholars cross to Alexandria to translate the Torah.

Curated by Arthur · Told by Maggid ·
Table of Contents
  1. The Table Arrived Before the Translators
  2. Eleazar Spoke for God in the Robes of the High Priest
  3. Seventy-Two Scholars Crossed to Alexandria
  4. The Banquet Was a Test the King Did Not Realize He Was Taking
  5. The Translation Was Done and the Words Held

The Table Arrived Before the Translators

The request goes out from Alexandria to Jerusalem: send the Torah, and send men who know it well enough to put it into Greek. But before any scholar packs his belongings for the crossing, before any word of Hebrew is turned into a word of Greek, the king sends a table. It is two cubits long, one cubit broad, and one and a half cubits high, with a border of a handbreadth carved in wave-work around the edges, raised ropes of gold meeting at each corner. Around the rim, eggs of precious stone are carved in alternating colors.

The Letter of Aristeas is insisting on something before the translation begins. Sacred words cannot be requested casually. Torah cannot be extracted from the people who carry it the way a librarian takes a book off a shelf. Ptolemy's table is the physical argument that he understands this, or wants to demonstrate that he does. Gold becomes diplomacy. Measurement becomes reverence. The weight of the gift is the opening statement in the king's case for why he deserves to receive what he is asking for.

Eleazar Spoke for God in the Robes of the High Priest

When the king's delegation reaches Jerusalem, Eleazar the High Priest receives them in the full garments of his office. The Letter describes those garments in detail because the garments are an argument. The High Priest in his robes is not a functionary dressed for ceremony. He is a man wearing the names of the twelve tribes on his breastplate, carrying gold bells at his hem, wearing the golden plate inscribed with the divine name on his forehead. He is walking proof that the Torah he is about to authorize for translation is inseparable from a living people who have been wearing it on their bodies for generations.

Eleazar's speech to the delegation makes the theology of the Law visible through its logic. He explains why each creature is clean or unclean, why mice are prohibited, what the distinctions mean as a system rather than as arbitrary rules. He is not defending strange customs. He is explaining a coherent architecture of meaning. Torah is not a collection of prohibitions. It is a map of how to live in a world created by a God who made distinctions and called Israel to honor them.

Seventy-Two Scholars Crossed to Alexandria

Six scholars from each tribe, seventy-two men total, travel from Jerusalem to Alexandria. They are not dispatched. They are escorted. The Letter insists on their dignity throughout the crossing. They are received as honored guests. They are seated at the king's banquet. The king addresses questions to each of them in turn across the course of the feast, questions about governance, justice, wisdom, and the nature of royal power.

Each scholar answers without conferring with the others, and each answer the Letter preserves is a small lesson in the gap between power that serves itself and power that serves those who depend on it. The scholars are not performing for the king's amusement. They are submitting Torah's answers to secular questions, showing a Greek king that the system Eleazar explained in Jerusalem is not only a ritual practice but a philosophy that can govern wisely.

The Banquet Was a Test the King Did Not Realize He Was Taking

Ptolemy asks each scholar in turn: what is the highest thing in governance? What makes a king secure? What is true piety? The answers circle back to the same center. A king is secured by justice. A king is pious when he acts as God acts toward him, with generosity, with mercy, with attention to those who cannot command attention for themselves. Ptolemy listens. He applauds each answer. The Letter records his applause as evidence of a king who is teachable, which is the quality that makes him worth teaching.

The banquet is a test the king entered thinking he was hosting. He intended to evaluate the scholars. The scholars, by answering truthfully about the obligations of power, evaluated him. He passed. The translation can proceed. A king who can hear Torah's answer to questions about justice without hardening against the answer is a king who deserves to have Torah in his library, because he might actually read it.

The Translation Was Done and the Words Held

The seventy-two scholars are housed separately and work in parallel. When their translations are compared, the letter claims, the agreement is exact. Each man working alone produced the same Greek words for the same Hebrew text. The claim is not primarily a claim about translation technique. It is a theological claim: the Torah that passed into Greek was not diminished or distorted in the crossing. The same truth that Eleazar wore on his breastplate in Jerusalem is now available in Ptolemy's library in Alexandria. The words held.

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From the tradition

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The texts this telling draws on, in full. Open a card to read inline, or expand it for a wider, quieter read.

Letter of Aristeas 1:59Letter of Aristeas

They made the table two cubits long (one cubit broad) one and a half cubits high, fashioning it of pure solid gold. What I am describing was not thin gold laid over another foundation, but the whole structure was of massive gold welded together.

And they made a border of a hand's breadth round about it. And there was a wreath of wave-work, engraved in relief in the form of ropes marvellously wrought on its three sides.

For it was triangular in shape and the style of the work was exactly the same on each of the sides, so that whichever side they were turned, they presented the same appearance. Of the two sides under the border, the one which sloped down to the table was a very beautiful piece of work, but it was the outer side which attracted the gaze of the spectator.

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Letter of Aristeas 1:63Letter of Aristeas

On the part of the border round the table which slanted upwards and met the eyes, there was wrought a pattern of eggs in precious stones, elaborately engraved by a continuous piece of fluted relief-work, closely connected together round the whole table.

And under the stones which had been arranged to represent eggs the artists made a crown containing all kinds of fruits, having at its top clusters of grapes and ears of corn, dates also and apples, and pomegranates and the like, conspicuously arranged. These fruits were wrought out of precious stones, of the same colour as the fruits themselves and they fastened them edgeways round all the sides of the table with a band of gold.

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Letter of Aristeas 1:97Letter of Aristeas

We were greatly astonished, when we saw Eleazar engaged in the ministration, at the mode of his dress, and the majesty of his appearance, which was revealed in the robe which he wore and the precious stones upon his person. There were golden bells upon the garment which reached down to his feet, giving forth a peculiar kind of melody, and on both sides of them there were pomegranates with variegated flowers of a wonderful hue.

He was girded with a girdle of conspicuous beauty, woven in the most beautiful colours. On his breast he wore the oracle of God, as it is called, on which twelve stones, of different kinds, were inset, fastened together with gold, containing the names of the leaders of the tribes, according to their original order, each one flashing forth in an indescribable way its own particular colour.

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Letter of Aristeas 1:121Letter of Aristeas

In order to prevent their country from being destroyed by the mining in these districts and possibly taken away from them owing to the Persian rule, since by the assistance of this false report they found an excuse for entering the district.

I have now, my dear brother Philocrates, given you all the essential information upon this subject in brief form. I shall describe the work of translation in the sequel. The High priest selected men of the finest character and the highest culture, such as one would expect from their noble parentage. They were men who had not only acquired proficiency in Jewish literature, but had studied most carefully that of the Greeks as well.

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Letter of Aristeas 1:166Letter of Aristeas

In the case of the wild animals, too, the same principle may be discovered. For the character of the weasel and of mice and such animals as these, which are expressly mentioned, is destructive.

Mice defile and damage everything, not only for their own food but even to the extent of rendering absolutely useless to man whatever it falls in their way to damage

The weasel class, too, is peculiar: for besides what has been said, it has a characteristic which is defiling:

It conceives through the ears and brings forth through the mouth. And it is for this reason that a like practice is declared unclean in men. For by embodying in speech all that they receive through the ears, they involve others in evils and work no ordinary impurity, being themselves altogether defiled by the pollution of impiety.

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Letter of Aristeas 1:213Letter of Aristeas

The king praised him and asked another man How his deliberations might be for the best? and he replied, 'If he constantly set justice before him in everything and thought that injustice was equivalent to deprivation of life. For God always promises the highest blessings to the just.'

Having praised him, the king asked the next How he could be free from disturbing thoughts in his sleep? And he replied, 'You have asked me a question which is very difficult to answer, for we cannot bring our true selves into play during the hours of sleep, but are held fast in these by imaginations that cannot be controlled by reason.

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Letter of Aristeas 1:293Letter of Aristeas

These results are achieved through the influence of the ruler, when he is a man who hates evil and loves the good and devotes his energies to saving the lives of men, just as you consider injustice the worst form of evil and by your just administration have fashioned for yourself an undying reputation, since God bestows upon you a mind which is pure and untainted by any evil.'

And when he ceased, loud and joyful applause broke out for some considerable time. When it stopped the king took a cup and gave a toast in honour of all his guests and the words which they had uttered. Then in conclusion he said, 'I have derived the greatest benefit from your presence.

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