Gate II: Ancient Texts & The Unseen
The Approach
In this Gate, we do not simply summarize. We provide actual short passages or accurate paraphrases with citations from texts like Jubilees, Jasher, and Josephus. We look specifically for the lesser-known stories, adversaries, and heavenly events that operate in the background.
Behind the Exodus
Scripture tells us what Israel saw.
Moses stood before Pharaoh. Plagues fell. The sea opened.
But ancient Jewish literature remembers the Exodus as a conflict that raged not only on earth, but in the heavens. Let us open the texts and see what they actually say.
Jubilees 48: The Prince Mastema
The Book of Jubilees frequently introduces heavenly beings into the biblical narrative. When Moses returns to Egypt, Jubilees introduces a powerful spiritual adversary operating behind Pharaoh's court: Prince Mastema (the chief of evil spirits).
Jubilees describes the unseen war that occurred when Moses was traveling back to Egypt:
“And thou knowest what He spake unto thee on Mount Sinai, and what Prince Mastema desired to do with thee when thou wast returning into Egypt... And the prince of the Mastema stood up against thee, and sought to cast thee into the hands of Pharaoh, and he helped the Egyptian sorcerers, and they stood up and wrought before thee.”
— Jubilees 48:2, 9
Notice the dynamic here.
The Egyptian sorcerers are not merely clever tricksters. According to Jubilees, an angelic adversary actively aids them in their resistance against Moses.
The Binding of the Adversary
Jubilees further claims that the Passover night involved more than just the Destroyer passing over houses. It involved the restraining of Mastema so that the Egyptians could not prevent the Exodus:
“And the Lord accomplished a great judgment on them... for Prince Mastema was bound and imprisoned behind the children of Israel that he might not accuse them.”
— Jubilees 48:14-15
But when Israel reached the Red Sea, Mastema was allegedly released, immediately rallying the Egyptians to pursue Israel to their doom.
In Jubilees, Pharaoh is merely the earthly pawn; the real resistance is spiritual.
Jasher 79: The Names of the Sorcerers
The Book of Jasher (a later medieval compilation of ancient Jewish traditions) expands heavily on the encounters in Pharaoh's court. While Exodus leaves the Egyptian magicians anonymous, Jasher gives them names and voices.
“And when they had gone Pharaoh sent for Balaam the magician and to Jannes and Jambres his sons, and to all the magicians and conjurors and counsellors which belonged to the king, and they all came and sat before the king... And Jannes and Jambres said to the king, 'This is nothing else but the work of magicians like ourselves.'”
— Jasher 79:27, 29
Remarkably, the Apostle Paul refers to these exact names in the New Testament when writing to Timothy:
“Now as Jannes and Jambres withstood Moses, so do these also resist the truth...”
— 2 Timothy 3:8
This proves that even if the Book of Jasher itself was compiled later, it preserves ancient traditions that were widely known and accepted in the first century.
Josephus: Moses the Military Commander
Exodus is silent about the forty years Moses spent in Egypt before he killed an Egyptian and fled. The first-century Jewish historian Flavius Josephus fills this silence with a dramatic account in his Antiquities of the Jews.
According to Josephus, Egypt was invaded by the Ethiopians. In desperation, the Egyptians received an oracle to make Moses their general. Josephus describes Moses leading an army through a deadly desert:
“Moses... took his army, and led them... through the wilderness. Now that ground was difficult to be passed over, because of the multitude of serpents... Moses invented a wonderful stratagem to preserve the army safe... he made baskets, like unto arks, of sedge, and filled them with ibises [birds that eat serpents], and carried them along with them.”
— Josephus, Antiquities 2.10.2 (Paraphrased)
Moses achieves a great victory and even marries the Ethiopian princess Tharbis to secure peace. (The Book of Jasher 71 records a very similar tradition, claiming Moses reigned as King of Cush for forty years).
While we cannot treat this as canonical truth, it shows how the ancients viewed Moses: not merely as a shepherd who became a prophet, but as a man who intimately understood Egyptian military might and royal politics before he ever demanded Israel's freedom.
Ezekiel the Tragedian: The Heavenly Throne
There exists a fascinating surviving fragment of a Jewish play written in Greek during the second century BC, called the Exagoge. The author, Ezekiel the Tragedian, gives Moses a profound prophetic dream before the Exodus begins:
“I dreamt there was on the summit of mount Sinai a certain great throne extending up to heaven's cleft, on which there sat a certain noble man wearing a crown and holding a great scepter in his left hand. With his right hand he beckoned to me, and I stood before the throne... He gave me the scepter and told me to sit on the great throne... And I beheld the entire circling earth... and a multitude of stars fell to my knees.”
— Ezekiel the Tragedian, Exagoge 68-78
In this ancient Jewish interpretation, Moses' calling isn't just about earthly politics. He is symbolically handed cosmic authority over the earth and the stars (often representing angels/divine beings). It elevates the Exodus into a clash of heavenly proportions.
The Second Gate Closes
These texts—Jubilees, Jasher, Josephus, and the Exagoge—show us that ancient readers did not see the Exodus as a purely earthly event.
They saw angelic adversaries aiding sorcerers.
They saw cosmic authority given to a prophet.
They saw spiritual powers being bound and released.
But what happens when we combine these ancient views with history, archaeology, and the New Testament?
The Next Gate
Gate III: Connections
Everything goes on the table. We mix the Bible, extra-biblical texts, Egyptian archaeology, and the unseen realm to investigate the true scale of the Exodus.
Open Gate III