t12papocrypha
Testament of Levi 12
Levi rehearses the genealogical record of his sons and grandsons — Gershom, Kohath, Merari and their children — and marks the key dates of his own life: his entry into Canaan at eight, the slaying of Shechem at eighteen, his priestly ordination at nineteen, his marriage at twenty-eight, and his descent into Egypt at forty. He closes by addressing his assembled descendants as a third generation and noting the death of Joseph in his hundred and eighteenth year, anchoring covenant lineage and the priesthood office in datable, genealogical fact.
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And Gersham took a wife, and she bare to him Lomni and Semei. And the sons of Kohath, Ambram, Isaar, Chebro, and Ozel. And the sons of Merari, Mooli and Homusi. And in my ninety-fourth year Ambram took Jochebed my daughter to him to wife, for they were born in one day, he and my daughter. Eight years old was I when I went into the land of Canaan, and eighteen years when I slew Shechem, and at nineteen years I became priest, and at twenty-eight years I took a wife, and at forty years I went into Egypt. And behold, ye are my children, my children even ''of'' a third generation. In my hundred and eighteenth year Joseph died.
