What is The Book of Jashar? The Hebrew term yashar
(usually spelled as jashar in English translations) is related to
the Hebrew words “to sing” or “song” (shar and shîr). Yashar comes
from the Hebrew verbal form that prefaces songs like Exodus 15: “Thus sang [Hebrew,
yashir] Moses.” So, The Book of Jashar would be a compilation of
hymns or liturgy. The lament that begins the Song of the Bow—“O how the mighty have
fallen” (2 Sam 1:25, 27)—recalls the eclipse of the early Israelite chiefdom
led by Saul and his son Jonathan. It also references the city of Gath (v. 20),
a city destroyed by the Arameans around 840 BCE, never to rise again.20 This
points to a relatively early hymn that was written down in a liturgical
collection. The Hebrew word yashar also means “upright,” which actually
gives the book a nice double meaning—the songs of the upright.
Indeed, this is just the kind of pun that scribes love. The “upright” becomes a
self-description of the owners of the scroll—namely, the scribes. (William M.
Schniedewind, Who Really Wrote the Bible: The Story of the Scribes [Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 2024], 72)
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