Harba de-Moshe (חרבא דמשה), the Sword of Moses, is one of the most important Jewish theurgic texts from the Geonic period. First published by Moses Gaster in 1896 from a unique manuscript in his possession, the text dates to approximately the 7th-8th century CE and originated in the Jewish communities of Babylonia or Palestine during the era of the Geonim—the heads of the great Talmudic academies.
The text opens with a chain of transmission that mirrors the structure of Pirkei Avot's famous opening—but instead of the oral Torah, it traces the transmission of divine power. God revealed the "Sword"—a collection of powerful divine names—to Moses on Mount Sinai. Moses passed it to the angel Metatron, prince of the divine presence. Metatron passed it to the angels of each of the seven heavens in descending order, and from the lowest heaven it was transmitted to the "sons of men who are pure and faithful."
This chain of transmission serves a specific purpose. By routing the knowledge through angelic intermediaries, the text establishes that the practitioner who uses these names is not acting on personal authority but invoking a chain of divine sanction that extends from God through the heavenly bureaucracy down to earth. The adjurations in the text frequently remind the angels of this chain: "I adjure you by the one who revealed this to Moses, who revealed it to Metatron, who revealed it to you."
The "Sword" itself is not a physical weapon. It is a collection of divine names—the Name that created heaven and earth, the Name that split the Sea of Reeds, the Name by which Moses shattered the tablets. The metaphor of a sword conveys the names' power to cut through any obstacle, spiritual or physical. Scholar Yuval Harari, who published the definitive critical edition in 1997, has shown that the text reflects a sophisticated theology of language and divine power characteristic of late antique Jewish mysticism.