"Now look again in the picture," God said. "See who it is that seduced Eve and what is the fruit of the tree. You will know what shall be and how it shall be for your seed among the people at the end of the days of the age."
Abraham looked into the picture, and his eyes were drawn to the side of the Garden of Eden.
He saw a man, vast in height and terrifying in breadth, incomparable in appearance. This was Adam, whose stature, when first created, reached from one end of the world to the other. Beside him was a woman, Eve, equal to him in aspect and form. They were embracing, standing under a tree of the Garden, and the fruit of the tree looked like a cluster of grapes on a vine.
Behind the tree stood a figure in the form of a serpent, but this was no ordinary snake. It had hands and feet like a man's, and wings on its shoulders, six on the right side and six on the left. Twelve wings. This was Azazel himself, riding the serpent, using it as his instrument, the same role the tradition elsewhere assigns to Sammael (Pirke de Rabbi Eliezer 13).
The serpent-figure held the grapes of the tree in its hands, and both Adam and Eve were eating.
Abraham asked: "Who are these two embracing? Who is the one between them? What is the fruit they are eating?"
God answered: "This is the human world. This is Adam, and this is their desire upon the earth. This is Eve. But he who is between them represents ungodliness, the beginning of their path to perdition. He is Azazel."
"O Eternal, Mighty One! Why have you given him power to destroy the generation of men in their works upon the earth?"
God's answer was chilling in its precision: "Those who will to do evil, and how much I hated it in those who do it, over them I gave him power, and they came to love him."
Abraham pushed further, to the hardest question: "Why have you willed that evil should be desired in the hearts of men, since you are angered over the very thing you yourself permitted?"
The question of theodicy, asked before the throne of heaven, in the presence of the divine picture where everything was laid out from the beginning.
“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?”
