When the people of Babylon decided to build a tower reaching heaven, everyone had to make bricks. Everyone had to write their name on their brick. But twelve men refused. According to the Chronicles of Jerahmeel, a 12th-century Hebrew chronicle translated by Moses Gaster in 1899, the dissenters included Abram, Nahor, Lot, and nine others. The people seized them and dragged them before the princes.
"Why did you refuse?" the princes demanded. The twelve answered: "We know but one God, and Him we serve. Even if you burn us in the fire together with the bricks, we shall not walk in your ways." The princes wanted them burned immediately, but Yoktan, the head prince, stalled. He gave them seven days to reconsider, secretly planning a rescue. That night, Yoktan summoned fifty warriors and ordered them to smuggle the prisoners to the mountains with provisions. Eleven of the twelve accepted gratefully.
Abram alone refused to run. Yoktan was baffled. "Why will you not answer like your friends?" Abram replied: "If we flee to the mountains, wild beasts may devour us or famine may kill us. I shall not depart from this place. If I am to die, I shall die by the will of God." Yoktan warned him: "Your blood be upon your own head." Abram stayed in prison.
When the seven days passed, the mob found only Abram. They heated a brick-kiln until it blazed fiercely and cast him in. But God sent a massive earthquake. The fire leaped from the furnace and became a wall of flame that consumed 84,500 of the surrounding men. Abram walked out unburned. He rejoined his eleven companions in the mountains, and they returned together, "happy and rejoicing in the name of the Lord." The people never spoke against them again, and from that day the place was called "The God of Abraham."
XXIX. (1) Now, it came to pass, when the inhabitants of
the land were already spread abroad, that they gathered
together and journeyed from the East, and arrived at a
valley in the land of Babylon, where they stayed. Then
each man said to his neighbour, ' Behold the time is coming
when at the end of days man will be separated from his
neighbour, and brother from brother, and there wall be war
1 N.B. — Sliem has evidently dropped out in tlie MS.
between us. Come, therefore, and let us build a city and a
tower, the top of which is to reach heaven, and let us make
for us a great name upon the earth.' (2) And each one
said to his neighbour, ' Come, and let us make bricks, and
let each one write his name upon his brick, and let us burn
them, and each brick will be to us as a stone and the pitch
for mortar.' Each one made his brick and wrote his name
upon it, with the exception of twelve men, who did not
wish to be with them. (3) These are the names of the
men who were not in their counsel: Abram, Nahor, Lot,
Ee u, Tinuto, Seba, Almodad, Jobab, Eser, Abimael, Sheba,
and Ofir. The people of the land seized these, and,
bringing them to their princes, said, ' These are the men
who have transgressed the counsel we have advised, and they
do not wish to tread in our paths.' (4) The princes then
said to them, ' Why did you refuse to make bricks, the same
as the other peoj^le of the land?' And they answered,
* We shall not make bricks nor remain with you, for we
know but one God, and Him we serve; even if you burn us
in the fire together with the bricks, we shall not walk in
your ways.' (5) The princes were very wroth thereat, and
said, * As they have spoken, so shall we do; for unless
they act as we do, you shall cast them in the fire together
with the bricks.' (6) And Yoqtan, the head of the princes,
answered and said, 'We shall not do this, but we will
grant them seven days, and then, if they desire to make
the bricks with us, they shall live; but if they refuse,
they shall die by the fire.' For he sought to save them
from their hands, as he was the head of the house of their
fathers, notwithstanding that they served the Lord. So the
people did, and placed the transgressors in the prison, in the
house of Yoqtan. (7) And it came to pass in the evening that
Yoqtan the prince called fifty men of valour, and commanded
them, saying, ' Gird yourselves, and this very night take these
men that are imprisoned in my house, place them upon ten
(twelve) mules, and, providing both the men and the animals
with food, bring them to the mountains, and there remain
with them; but if you betray this thing to anyone, you shall
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die by fire.' (8) The men accordingly went forth to do as
they were commanded. In the night they took them and
brought them before Yoqtan the prince. He said to them,
' Ye who remain steadfast in God, trust in Him for ever, for
He shall deliver you and save you. Therefore behold I
have commanded these fifty men to take you to the moun-
tains with provender and food, and there do you conceal
yourselves in the valleys, for in the valleys there is sufficient
water, and stay there for thirty days, for by that time
either the thoughts of the people will have passed from
you, or the anger of the Lord wdll be kindled against them
so that He shall destroy them, for I know that they will
not abide by their wicked counsel wiiich they devised,
for their plan will be frustrated. (9) And at the end of
the seven days, when they seek you, I will say to them,
" They have broken the door of the prison and fled during
the night, and I sent a hundred men to pursue and
seek them: I shall do all this to appease their wrath." '
And eleven men answered him, saying, ' Behold we have
found favour in thine eyes, for thou hast delivered our
lives from the hands of our enemies.' (10) Abram alone
w^as silent, and Yoqtan the prince said to him, ' Why dost
thou not answer together with thy friends?' And Abram
replied, ' Behold to-day we flee to the mountains to escape
from the fire; but if wild beasts rush out of the mountains
and devour us, or if food is lacking so that we die by famine,
we shall be found fleeing before the people of the land and
dying by our sins. Now, as the Lord in whom I trust
liveth, I shall not depart from this place, wherein they have
imprisoned me, and if I am to die through any iniquity,
then I shall die by the will of God according to His desire.'
(11) ' Thy blood be upon thine own head,' said the prince,
* if thou wilt not flee with these men; for if thou wilt flee
thou art sure to be saved.' Abram replied, ' I shall not flee,
but remain.' He was accordingly put into prison again,
and the prince sent the eleven men away in charge of fifty
others, whom he commanded to remain with them for
fifteen days, and to return and say, ^ We have not been
able to find them.' ' If 3'ou do not do this I shall have you
burnt to death.' (12) At the end of seven days all the
people assembled and said to their princes, ' Give us the
men who refused to abide by our counsel, and let us burn
them in the fire.' They thereupon sent for them, but
found only Abram. 'Where are those men who were
bound in the prison of thy house?' asked the chiefs, Pinhas
and Nimrod. Yoqtan replied: ' They broke away in the
middle of the night and escaped, and I have sent a hundred
men after them to discover and to slay them.' And the
people exclaimed, ' Since we have only found Abram, let us
burn him in the fire.' (13) And they took Abram and
brought him before the princes, who asked him, saying,
'Where are the men whom w^e imprisoned with thee?'
' I do not know, for I slept all the night, and when I
awoke I did not find them.' So they made a brick-kiln,
and heated it until the bricks in it glowed fiercely; they
then placed Abram in the furnace of fire, and Yoqtan
appeased the wrath of the people by the burning of Abram.
(14) The Lord at that moment caused a great earthquake
throughout the land, so that the fire leaped from the
furnace and became a huge blaze, which devoured all the
men that surrounded it, and the number of men burnt on
that day was 84,500. But Abram w^as not burnt, and he
came forth from the furnace of the Chaldees {i.e., the fire of
the Chaldees), and, having escaped, he went to his friends
upon the mountains and related all that had befallen him.
They thereupon returned with him from the mountains,
happy and rejoicing in the name of the Lord, nor did the
people speak against them any longer. They thenceforward
called the name of that place ' The God of Abraham.'
