Book of Eldad and Modad

James1920 fragment dossier, printedpage 40

40 THE LOST APOCRYPHA OF things, n.). O foolish ones, compare yourselves to a tree ; take the vine ; first it sheddeth the leaf, then a shoot cometh (then a leaf, then a flower : H. omits), and after that a sour berry, then a cluster fully ripe. (Here I. ends; H. continues) : So also my people hath had unquietnesses and afflictions : afterward it shall receive good things." The resemblance to 2 Peter iii. 4, etc. (where is the promise of his coming?) is pointed out by Lightfoot. The difficulty I find in acquiescing in Lightfoot' s conjecture is that I do not quite sec whom Eldad and Medad would be addressing. In the story as we have it in Numbers xi., their prophecy is uttered not very long after the giving of the Law, and just before the gift of the quails. The people have not been long in the wilderness — not long enough, it seems to me, to make it appropriate that they should say " we have grown old in looking for the fulfilment of the promises." Such language would be more fitting in the mouth of Israel when in exile and hoping for the Return. And so I think that those are perhaps more likely to be right who suggest that the apocryphal Ezekiel is the source of this passage.