Fallen Angels, the Watchers, and the Origins of Evil (11 page)

           
Then the word of the Lord was sent to him through an angel, saying, “Get out of your country, and from your kindred and from the house of your father and go to a land which I will show you, and I shall make you a great and numerous nation. And I will bless you and I will make your name great, and you will be blessed in the earth, and in You shall all families of the earth be blessed, and I will bless them that bless you, and curse them that curse you. I will be a God to you and your son, and to your son’s son, and to all your offspring, fear not, from now on and to all generations of the earth I am your God.”

           
The Lord God said to the angel, “Open his mouth and his ears, that he may hear and speak with his mouth, with the language which has been revealed.” For it had ceased from the mouths of all the children of men from the day of the overthrow of Babel. And the angel opened his mouth, and his ears and his lips, and the angel began to speak with him in Hebrew in the tongue of the creation. He took the books of his fathers, and these were written in Hebrew, and he transcribed them, and he began from then on to study them, and the angel made known to him that which he could not understand, and he studied them during the six rainy months.

           
In the seventh year of the sixth week he spoke to his father and informed him that he would leave Haran to go into the land of Canaan to see it and return to him. Terah his father said to him, “Go in peace. May the eternal God make your path straight. And the Lord be with you, and protect you from all evil, and grant to you grace, mercy, and favor before those who see you, and may none of the children of men have power over you to harm you. Go in peace. If you see a land pleasant to your eyes to dwell in, then arise and take me with you and take Lot with you, the son of Haran your brother as your own son, the Lord be with you. Nahor your brother leave with me until you return in peace, and we go with you all together.”

           
And Peleg the son of Eber died in those days, in the forty-eighth year of the life of Abram son of Terah, and all the days of Peleg were two hundred and thirty-nine years.

           
Abram journeyed from Haran, and he took Sarai, his wife, and Lot, his brother Haran’s son and they went to the land of Canaan, and he came into Asshur, and proceeded to Shechem, and dwelt near a tall oak. He saw the land was very pleasant from the border of Hamath to the tall oak. The Lord said to him, “To you and to your offspring I will give this land.” He built an altar there, and he offered on it a burnt sacrifice to the Lord, who had appeared to him.

           
He left from that place and went to the mountain Bethel on the west and Ai on the east, and pitched his tent there. He saw the land was very wide and good, and everything grew on it, vines, and figs, and pomegranates, oaks, and ilexes, and turpentine and oil trees, and cedars and cypresses, and date trees, and all trees of the field, and there was water on the mountains. And he blessed the Lord who had led him out of Ur of the Chaldees, and had brought him to this land.

           
And God established the covenant of circumcision with Abraham and said, “Every one that is born, the flesh of whose foreskin is not circumcised on the eighth day, does not belong to the children of the covenant which the Lord made with Abraham, but instead they belong to the children of destruction.
 
Nor is there any other sign on him that he is the Lord’s, but he is destined to be destroyed and killed from the earth, and to be rooted out of the earth, for he has broken the covenant of the Lord our God. All the angels of the presence (of the Lord) and all the angels of sanctification have been created already circumcised from the day of their creation, and before the angels of the presence (of the Lord) and the angels of sanctification He has sanctified Israel, that they should be with Him and with His holy angels.
 

           
Command the children of Israel and let them observe the sign of this covenant for their generations as an eternal law, and they will not be rooted out of the land.
 
For the command is ordained for a covenant, that they should observe it forever among all the children of Israel. For Ishmael and his sons and his brothers, and Esau, the Lord did not cause them to come to Him, and he did not choose them. Although they are the children of Abraham, He knew them, but He chose Israel to be His people.

           
He sanctified them, and gathered them from among all the children of men; for there are many nations and many peoples, and all are His, and over all nations He has placed spirits in authority to lead them astray from Him. But over Israel He did not appoint any angel or spirit, for He alone is their ruler, and He will preserve them and require them at the hand of His angels and His spirits, and at the hand of all His powers in order that He may preserve them and bless them, that they may be His and He may be theirs from now on forever.

           
I announce to you that the children of Israel will not keep true to this law, and they will not circumcise their sons according to all this law; for in the flesh of their circumcision they will omit this circumcision of their sons, and all of the sons of Beliar will leave their sons uncircumcised as they were born.

           
There will be great wrath from the Lord against the children of Israel because they have forsaken His covenant and turned aside from His word, and provoked (God) and blasphemed, because they do not observe the ordinance of this law; for they have treated their genitalia like the Gentiles, so that they may be removed and rooted out of the land. And there will no more be pardon or forgiveness to them for all the sin of this eternal error.”

           
Then, in the days of King Saul, the spirits of the evil ones, the sons of the Watchers inhabited the people and animals of the land of Amalek. And God sent the prophet Samuel to speak to the king. Samuel said unto Saul, “The Lord sent me to anoint thee to be king over his people, over Israel; now therefore hearken thou unto the voice of the words of the Lord.”

           
Thus saith the Lord of hosts, “I remember that which Amalek did to Israel, how he laid wait for him in the way, when he came up from Egypt. Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.” And Saul gathered the people together, and numbered them in Telaim, two hundred thousand footmen, and ten thousand men of Judah.

 
          
And Saul came to a city of Amalek, and laid wait in the valley. And Saul said unto the Kenites, “Go, depart, get you down from among the Amalekites, lest I destroy you with them, for ye shewed kindness to all the children of Israel, when they came up out of Egypt.” So the Kenites departed from among the Amalekites. And Saul smote the Amalekites from Havilah until thou comest to Shur, that is over against Egypt. And he took Agag the king of the Amalekites alive, and utterly destroyed all the people with the edge of the sword.

           
But Saul and the people spared Agag, and the best of the sheep, and of the oxen, and of the fatlings, and the lambs, and all that was good, and would not utterly destroy them, but every thing that was vile and refuse, that they destroyed utterly.

           
Then came the word of the Lord unto Samuel, saying, “It repenteth me that I have set up Saul to be king, for he is turned back from following me, and hath not performed my commandments.” And it grieved Samuel; and he cried unto the Lord all night. And when Samuel rose early to meet Saul in the morning, and it was told Samuel, “Saul came to Carmel, and, behold, he set him up a place, and is gone about, and passed on, and gone down to Gilgal.”

And Samuel came to Saul and Saul said unto him, “Blessed be thou of the Lord, I have performed the commandment of the Lord.” And Samuel said, “What meaneth then this bleating of the sheep in mine ears, and the lowing of the oxen which I hear?”

           
And Saul said, “They have brought them from the Amalekites, for the people spared the best of the sheep and of the oxen, to sacrifice unto the Lord thy God; and the rest we have utterly destroyed.” Then Samuel said unto Saul, “Stay, and I will tell thee what the Lord hath said to me this night.” And Saul said unto him, “Say on.” And Samuel said, “When thou wast little in thine own sight, wast thou not made the head of the tribes of Israel, and the Lord anointed thee king over Israel?”

           
“And the Lord sent thee on a journey, and said, ‘Go and utterly destroy the sinners the Amalekites, and fight against them until they be consumed.’ Wherefore then didst thou not obey the voice of the Lord, but didst fly upon the spoil, and didst evil in the sight of the Lord?”

And Saul said unto Samuel, “Yea, I have obeyed the voice of the Lord, and have gone the way which the Lord sent me, and have brought Agag the king of Amalek, and have utterly destroyed the Amalekites. But the people took of the spoil, sheep and oxen, the chief of the things which should have been utterly destroyed, to sacrifice unto the Lord thy God in Gilgal.”

And Samuel said, “Hath the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams. For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry. Because thou hast rejected the word of the Lord, he hath also rejected thee from being king.”

           
And Saul said unto Samuel, “I have sinned for I have transgressed the commandment of the Lord, and thy words because I feared the people, and obeyed their voice.” And Saul spared the animals and the some of the people of the land and brought the evil spirits into the land of the Israelites to dwell and spread there. And evil was let loose to plague and possess the souls of man until the day when Messiah came.

           
And it came to pass in those days that Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee, and was baptized by John in Jordan. And straightway coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens opened, and the Spirit like a dove descending upon him. And there came a voice from heaven, saying, “Thou art my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” And immediately the spirit driveth him into the wilderness.

Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil. And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was afterward hungered. And when the tempter came to him, he said, “If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread.”
 
But he answered and said, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.’”

Then the devil taketh him up into the holy city, and setteth him on a pinnacle of the temple, and saith unto him, “If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down; for it is written, ‘He shall give his angels charge concerning thee and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone.’”

           
Jesus said unto him, “It is written again, ‘Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.’”

Again, the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them, and saith unto him, “All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me.”

           
Then saith Jesus unto him, “Get thee hence, Satan, for it is written, ‘Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.’”

Then the devil leaveth him, and, behold, angels came and ministered unto him. For it is written, “Submit yourselves to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.”

           
Now when Jesus had heard that John was cast into prison, he departed into Galilee. Leaving Nazareth, he came and dwelt in Capernaum, which is upon the sea coast, in the borders of Zabulon and Nephthalim; that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias the prophet, saying, “The land of Zabulon, and the land of Nephthalim, by the way of the sea, beyond Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles, the people which sat in darkness saw great light; and to them which sat in the region and shadow of death light is sprung up.”

           
And his fame went throughout all Syria and they brought unto him all sick people that were taken with diverse diseases and torments, and those who were possessed with devils, and those who were lunatic, and those that had the palsy; and he healed them. And there followed him great multitudes of people from Galilee, and from Decapolis, and from Jerusalem, and from Judea, and from beyond Jordan.