The removal of sin is described as
cleaning in Enoch 1, 20 and v. 22, ‘And the earth will be cleansed from all
corruption and from all sin’. And in Jub. 7, 33 in the rendering of the
expiation of blood by cleansing in Num. 35, 33, it says, ‘For the earth will not
be clean from the blood which hath been shed upon it, for (only) through the
blood which hath been shed upon it, for (only) through the blood of him that
shed it will the earth be purified throughout all its generations; (21, 19) And
the earth cannot be cleansed from the blood of man’. Very instructive is the
blessing of Abraham given to Jacob, (22, 14) ‘And may He cleanse thee (Jacob)
from all unrighteousness and impurity, that thou mayest be forgiven all (thy)
transgressions, and (thy) sins of ignorance’. If the wording of the statement has
passed unchanged through the several translations, God’s pardon of both kinds
of sin, deliberate and unintentional, depends on His previous cleansing of
Jacob from transgressions against the neighbour and from those against
morality. Does that mean that the latter sins are so grave that, unless first
removed by God’s cleansing, sins of all other kind could not receive
forgiveness, as in Jer. 33, 8? Or would it be more natural to assume that, as
in the continued blessing in v. 19, ‘May the Most High God help thee and the
God of heaven bless thee and remove thee from their uncleanness and from all
their error’, God would keep Jacob away from such pollution, and (16) he
himself would guard against such uncleanness, so that ‘cleanse’ would mean ‘keep
clean from’? Did the author think here of Psalm 19, 13, 14, and did he
interpret מנסתרות נקני as ‘keep me clean from sins hidden from me?’ Again in
34, 19 it states, ‘And this day (of Atonement) hath been ordained that they
should grieve thereon for their sins, and for all their transgressions, and for
all their errors, so that they might cleanse themselves on that day once a year’.
It correctly preserved and exactly translated, the words interpret לטהר אהכם in
Lev. 13, 30, or לפני ה`תטהרו in Lev. 16, 30 as ‘cleanse yourselves, תִטַּהרו,
though the author does not indicate how the cleansing should be effected (the
fasting prescribed on the Day of Atonement is explained as an expression of
grieving at sins, cf. 1 Reg. 21, 27). In 50, 5, quoted before, ‘Until Israel is
cleansed from all guilt of fornication, and uncleanness, and pollution, and
sin, and error, and . . . the land will be clean from that time for evermore’,
and people and the land will be purged of all manner of grave sin, as in Ezek.
36, 25-29; 37, 23. On the ideas of Ezek. 26, 26; Psalm 51, 12 is based 1, 23, ‘And
I shall create in them a holy spirit, and I shall cleanse them so that they
shall not turn away from Me’. In 4, 26, ‘Through it (Mount Zion) will the earth
be sanctified from all (its) guilt and its uncleanness throughout the
generations of the world’, ‘sanctified’ stands for ‘cleansed’, as they appear
as synonyms in Lev. 16, 19 and Is. 66, 17. And the ‘holy’ spirit which he
mentions again, (1, 21) ‘Create in them a clean heart and a holy spirit, and
let them not be ensnared in their sins from henceforth until eternity’, is
derived from Psalm 51, 12, ‘Create me a clean heart, O God; and renew a steadfast
spirit within me. (13) Cast me not away from Thy presence; and take not Thy holy
spirit from me.’ (Adolf Būchler, Studies in Sin and Atonement in the
Rabbinic Literature of the First Century [Library of Biblical Studies; New
York: Ktav Publishing House, Inc., 1967], 282-83)
There are only few exceptionally pious
men who are described as pure, or free, from sin. So in Psalms of Solomon 17,
41 the Messianic king is stated to be pure from sin; and Josephus (Antiqit. 19,
6, 4, 315) relates that, when Agrippa I offered the high-priesthood to Yonathan
son of Anan, he declined the honour and recommended for the position his
brother Matthias, as he was pure from all sin against God and from all offences
against the king, πασης
. . . αμαρτιας . . . καθαρος. Though the sins meant there were
by others committed against God and a human being, the expression referring to
both was taken from offences against God. R. Eliezer declared that in the
patriarchs there was neither iniquity nor sin (Mehkil. Exod. 16, 10, 48 a: אבות
הראשונים אין בהם לא עון ולא חטאת. In Mekhil. R. Simeon Exod. 16, 10, 76 the
author if R. Eleazar of Modin. Against R. Eliezer’s authorship speaks the fact that
he impressed upon his disciples Eccl. 7, 20, ‘For there is not a righteous man
upon earth that doeth good and sinneth not’, Synh. 101 a, and said, Baraitha ‘Arakh.
17 a, If God had judged Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, they would not have been able
to stand his rebuke); and his disciple R. Yehudah b. Ilai said (Lev. r. 27m 4;
Pesikt. 76 a) ‘If anyone should ask thee whether really Adam would have lived
for ever, if he had not eaten from the forbidden tree, tell him that, as Elijah
who sinned not, lives for ever, so it would have been with Adam before him’;
and R. Yehudah assumed, as it seems, without being contradicted, that there was
no sin in Elijah. And an anonymous Baraitha states (Shabb. 55 b; Baba bath. 17
a) that four men died only in consequence of the advice given by the serpent to
Eve, Benjamin, Jacob’s son, Amram, Moses’ father, Jesse, David’s father, and
Kileab, David’s son; that is, there was no sin in them to account for their
death. (Adolf Būchler, Studies in Sin and Atonement in the Rabbinic
Literature of the First Century [Library of Biblical Studies; New York:
Ktav Publishing House, Inc., 1967], 331-32)
. . . on Eccl. 12, 7, ‘And the
spirit returneth unto God who gave it’, the Baraitha says, ‘Return to it Him in
purity, as He gave it to thee in purity’; the soul as given by God is pure,
free from sin, and it should not lose its purity by being defiled by sin.
(Ibid., 363-64)
Shabb. 152b: תנה לו כמו שנתשה לך בטהרה
אף ארה בטהרה. The illustration is preceded in Lev. r. 18, 1; Koh. r. 12, 7 by a
statement of R. Simon (b. Pazzi) who interprets Eccl. 12, 7: When does the spirit
return to God who gave it? when the dust returneth to the earth as it was, (free
from guilt); if not, 1 Sam. 25, 29 applies to it, ‘And the souls of thine
enemies, them shall He sling out’. In Aggad. Gen. 35, 69, R. Simon’s statement
reads differently, ‘If it is זכה וטהורה וקדושה, clean, pure and holy, as it was
given, then the spirit returns to God’. Cf. the clearer wording quoted by Buber
from a manuscript. In Berakh. 10 a R. Joshua b. Levi says to R. Simeon b.
Pazzi: As God is pure, so the soul is pure. (Ibid., 363 n. 2)
