Ginzei Qedem

Genizah Research Annual

Ginzei Qedem
Genizah Research Annual
Volume

10
2014

Editor
Y. Zvi Stampfer

Editorial board:
Menachem Ben-Sasson (Hebrew University), Haggai Ben-Sammai (Hebrew University), Robert
Brody (Hebrew University), Y. Zvi Stampfer (Hebrew University and Ben-Zvi Istitute, Jerusalem)

International Advisory board:

Mark R. Cohen (Princeton University), Nell Danzig (Jewish Theological Seminary Of America),
James Diamond (University of Waterloo), Yaakov Elman (Yeshiva University), Mordechai
A. Friedman (Tel-Aviv University), Menachem Kahana (Hebrew University), Stefan C. Reif
(Cambridge University, UK), Sarah Stroumsa (Hebrew University)

Cover design and concept: Dvora Lifschitz

Hebrew Language Editing: Yehezkel Hovav
English Language Editing: Eve Levavi Feinstein
Editorial assistant: Avihay Gamdani
Typesetting: Yogev Barda
Printing: Gala Pre Press Ltd., Kadima, Israel
Production: Judith Loebenstein-Witztum

Cover illustration:
Ms. CUL T-S 16.378; reproduced here with the permission of the Syndics of
Cambridge University Library

Printed in Israel
Ginzei Qedem is produced by the Ben-Zvi Institute of Yad Izhak Ben-Zvi and the
Hebrew University of Jerusalem on behalf of the Friedberg Genizah Project.
All rights reserved to the Friedberg Genizah Project.
A joint venture between the Jewish Manuscript Preservation Society and the
Friedberg Genizah Project
ISSN 1565-7353

Copies of this journal may be ordered from

Yad Izhak Ben-Zvi, POB 7660, Jerusalem 91076; fax 972-2-5398838
bookstore@ybz.org.il

Table of Contents
English Section
Editorial Statement

7*

A Babylonian Jewish Aramaic Magical Booklet from the

Damascus Genizah
Gideon Bohak and Matthew Morgenstern

9*

Divine Love and the Salvation of Israel

A New Composition for the Seventh Day of Passover
Wout van Bekkum and Naoya Katsumata

45*

English Summaries

98*

Hebrew Section
Documents from Afghanistan in the National Library of Israel
Ofir Haim

Geniza Fragments of The Sword of Moses

Yuval Harari

29

The Order of Torah Reading forweekdays and Minchah

of Shabbatfrom the period of the Geonim
Mordechai Dov Weintraub

93

A New Panegyric in the Handwriting of Avraham ben Shlomo

Yaron Lisha
121

A Comparative Discussion of Prophetic

Visions in Jeremiah and Amos
Meirav Nadler

129

The Book of the Law in the House of the Lord is

a Copy (nuskha) Written by Moses: Yefet ben Els
Commentary on 2 Kings 22:1 23:3
Meira Polliack and Ilana Sasson

157

Book Review
Remains of Halakhic Responsa in the Cairo Geniza
Abraham David

193

Editorial Statement
We are pleased to present the tenth volume of Ginzei Qedem, an annual
publication devoted to Genizah texts and studies. The term Genizah here
functions as a collective noun for the Genizot around the world, and the
current volume demonstrates the broad variety of the genre and its
research. An article on the documents of the newly discovered Afghanistan
Genizah is included here, together with texts from the recently
re-discovered Damascus Genizah as well as new texts from the well-known
Cairo Genizah.
The diversity of the Genizah research is displayed in this volume as
well, as it represents many fields, including Biblical studies and exegesis,
Halakha, liturgy, history, magic, and more.
Ginzei Qedems purpose is to provide a specialized venue for the field
of Genizah research, in the hope that research on and publication of
Genizah texts will, in time, enrich both traditional and academic Jewish
studies, as well as Islamic ones.
Genizah research has made great strides in the last decade, mainly
with the establishment of the Friedberg Genizah Project, of which
Ginzei-Qedem is one branch. As part of the effort to serve our readers, the
electronic edition of Ginzei Qedem will be assimilated in the FGP website
and will be synchronized with the images and the bibliographic data of the
FGP database.
Contributions to Ginzei Qedem may be in Hebrew or English. Any
substantial quotations in a language other than that in which the article is

written must be accompanied by a translation, and articles in Hebrew must

be accompanied by an English abstract.
Contributions may be sent to: Ben-Zvi Institute, P.O.B. 7660,
Jerusalem 91076, Israel. Contributions and queries may also be sent by
e-mail to the editor at zvi56@ybz.org.il.

9*

A Babylonian Jewish Aramaic Magical

Booklet from the Damascus Genizah
Gideon Bohak and Matthew Morgenstern
The Damascus Genizah
Although discovered at about the same time, the Damascus Genizah is far
less widely known among Jewish studies scholars than its more famous
sister, the one from Cairo. 1 There are two reasons for this ignorance. First,
the vast proportion (more than ninety-nine percent) of the Damascus
Genizah consists of Muslim Arabic texts, which are of little interest to most
students of Jewish studies, and the remaining 0.5% consists mostly of
Christian fragments, only some of which, notably those containing sections
of the Septuagint, are of relevance for students of Judaism. Barely a
handful of the texts are written in Hebrew, Aramaic, or Judaeo-Arabic and
are of Jewish origin. 2 Second, the Christian and Jewish texts that made
their way into this Muslim Genizah and were preserved there until the early
twentieth century were shipped to Berlin in 1902 and shipped back to the
Ottoman court in Istanbul in 1909, and have never been seen again. Only
recently has it been discovered that while the fragments themselves are still
missing (and may be found one day in Damascus, in Istanbul, or

For the Damascus Genizah, see the excellent study by C. Bandt and A. Rattmann,
Die Damaskusreise Bruno Violets 1900/1901 zur Erforschung der Qubbet elChazne, Codices Manuscripti 76/77 (2011): 120.

For the Christian fragments, see Bandt and Rattmann, esp. pp. 1820; for the Jewish
ones, see ibid., p. 20. See also A. Ashur, A Ketubbah in the Palestinian Style with the
Permission of Matzliah Gaon, from the Damascus Genizah, Peamim 135 (2013):
16370 (Heb.).

Ginzei
Qedem
10

(2014)

10*

Gideon Bohak and Matthew Morgenstern

elsewhere), good black and white images of some of these fragments have
survived in several different collections. 3

A Babylonian Jewish Aramaic Magical Booklet

Among these now-lost fragments is a set of seven parchment folios of
small size and irregular shape containing magical spells and recipes in
Jewish Babylonian Aramaic, photographs of which may now be found in
the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin under the shelf mark Or. Sim. 6. 4 The
writing surface, handwriting, style, and contents make it clear that all seven
folios were written by the same scribe, whose hand was identified by Judith
Olszowy-Schlanger as dating to the eleventh century and displaying some
possibly Babylonian features. All seven folios probably came from a single
booklet, which must have contained more such folios. The order of the
preserved folios cannot be determined for certain, but we tried to arrange
them in what seems to be the most plausible sequence. 5 The longest

For the circumstances under which they were taken, see Bandt and Rattmann, pp.
910, 12, 16, and 18.

We are extremely grateful to Amir Ashur and especially to Ronny Vollandt, who is
now cataloguing the Damascus fragments in Berlin, for bringing these texts to our
attention. We are also grateful to Christoph Rauch for the photographs and for the
permission to publish them here, to Cordula Bandt for sharing with us other
photographs of the Damascus Genizah fragments, and to Judith Olszowy-Schlanger
for her palaeographical advice. Dr. James Nathan Ford read the manuscript and
proposed many helpful readings and interpretations, as well as granting us permission
to cite from magic bowls that that he is preparing for publication (cited as JNF).
Professor Shaul Shaked aided us with the Persian material and similarly granted us
permission to cite from his work on the Martin Schyen collection (cited as MS).

Unfortunately, the Arabic numerals on the margins of the folios bear no clear relation
to the folios original order. For the circumstances under which these numerals were
added to the original folios see Bandt and Rattmann, p. 13 and Plates 7 and 8. The
same is true of the small etiquettes with sequential numberings which were placed
next to each folio while the pictures were taken, which also bear no relation to the
original order of the folios.

A Babylonian Jewish Aramaic Magical Booklet from the Damascus Genizah

continuous stretch of text is found in our folios 57, where the spell that
begins in 5b continues into 6a, 6b, 7a, and 7b, ending at the bottom of 7b.
Similarly, there is a clear textual continuity from 1b to 2a and then to 2b,
and from 3a to 3b and to 4a and 4b. On the other hand, some text is
probably missing before 1a, there seems to be a break between 2b and 3a,
and the continuity between 4b and 5a is far from certain. In such cases, one
may either try to re-order the folios in a way that would leave fewer gaps or
assume, as we do, that more folios are still missing in these places,
especially before 1a and between 2b and 3a. How long the original booklet
was we cannot say, nor can we reconstruct the structure of its quires, as
even its bifolia were dismembered before they were photographed.
One additional factor complicating the reconstruction and interpretation
of this set of magical texts is that only three of the recipes bear clear titles:
( for love) in 2b:7, ( lit., for sending a fire, i.e., for
aggressive magic) in 3a:3, and ( for [appearing before] a governor)
in 5a:4. In all other cases, no titles are provided, and it often is unclear
where one recipe ends and the next begins. Unfortunately, the punctuation
marks used by the scribe do not seem to mark the beginnings or ends of the
magical recipes in any consistent manner or to separate the spells from the
ritual instructions that explain how to employ them. These difficulties are
compounded by the fact that a single textual unit may cover more than one
magical aim; for example, the long text that begins in folio 5b sets off
without any title or explanation (the previous recipe was for [appearing
before] a governor and ended at the bottom of 5a) and includes a long
spell for what is usually known as opening the heart, i.e., memorizing the
words of the Torah and the Talmud. But then, in 6b:5, we find the
connecting word , furthermore, followed by a long spell for
protection against all types of demons, and in 7a:5 we move without any
apparent break to a second anti-demonic spell, which begins with
, sealed and counter-sealed, and runs to 7b:6. Only then is the user
instructed to recite this adjuration on three (consecutive?) Fridays before

11*

12*

Gideon Bohak and Matthew Morgenstern

dusk, to immerse himself in water, and to fast and abstain from sexual
intercourse during these three Fridays. Thus, it seems that the ritual
instructions were applied to a set of three adjurations, one of which was
intended for the memorization of Torah and the other two for protection
against demons. 6 Such mixtures might be due to copying errors or
deliberate editorial activities taken by our scribe or by one of his
predecessors, and they certainly reflect the recipes complex transmission
history and contribute to the difficulties inherent in interpreting magic spell
texts.
Another feature of these recipes, which also reflects their long
transmission history, is that whereas the spells to be recited or inscribed are
consistently given in Aramaic, the ritual instructions are sometimes given
in Aramaic (e.g., 3a:53b:4 and 7b:711), but in other cases are given in
Arabic, here written in a phonetic manner that is also typical of the earliest
Judaeo-Arabic fragments from the Cairo Genizah (e.g., 5a:14). 7 This is an
example of a phenomenon that is well attested in both Jewish and nonJewish magical recipe books, namely, that when the society using these
recipes switches from one language of communication to another (in this
case, from Aramaic to Arabic), its spell-mongers often continue
transmitting the spells to be recited or inscribed in the old language, even
though it is no longer fully understood, but gradually translate the practical
instructions into the new vernacular. 8 In this respect, our booklet is a clear
6

As both the ritual instructions and the first of the three spells bear some resemblance
to the Sar Torah rituals of the Hekhalot literature, it is likely that the anti-demonic
spells are a later addition to whatever the original recipe may have contained.

For the pre-Saadian methods of writing Judaeo-Arabic, see J. Blau and S. Hopkins,
On Early Judaeo-Arabic Orthography, Zeitschrift fr arabische Linguistik 12
(1984): 927 and more recently J. Blau and S. Hopkins, On Aramaic Vocabulary in
Early Judaeo-Arabic Texts Written in Phonetic Spelling, Jerusalem Studies in Arabic
and Islam 32 (2006): 43371.

For this phenomenon, see further discussion in G. Bohak, Ancient Jewish Magic: A
History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 220.

A Babylonian Jewish Aramaic Magical Booklet from the Damascus Genizah

example of the ongoing circulation of some older Jewish Aramaic magical

spells and recipes in the Arabic-speaking Jewish communities of the
Middle Ages.
In many ways, including the small sizes and irregular shapes of the
folios, the mixture of Aramaic and Judaeo-Arabic, the aims of the
individual recipes, and most of the ritual techniques they employ, the
Damascus Genizah magical booklet looks quite similar to the earliest
parchment magical recipe books from the Cairo Genizah, with which it is
roughly contemporaneous. 9 However, the Damascus booklet is distinct
from its Cairene siblings in the strong Babylonian flavor of its spells, and
perhaps also of some of its ritual instructions. This is especially apparent
when we note the numerous parallels between these spells and those found
in the Babylonian Jewish (and non-Jewish) incantation bowls, many of
which are noted in our commentary to the text. It is, of course, true that
these recipes also bear many resemblances to the Palestinian Jewish
Aramaic magical texts, as attested in late-antique metal-plate amulets and
in many Genizah magical texts, but their resemblances to the incantation
bowls are far more numerous and far more striking. Moreover, in some
cases the Babylonian elements are even more obvious, including, for
example, the appearance of Babylonian deities in 2a:10 and of the
Chaldaean priests in 4a:8. Thus, not only the folios provenance and
language (on which more below) but also their contents argue for their
Eastern origins, in or around the world of late-antique Babylonian Jewish
magic. This is a world about which we know much, but almost exclusively
from a single type of source, namely, the Babylonian incantation bowls, to
which may be added such texts as the Havdala de-Rabbi Akiba, the Pishra
de-Rabbi Hanina ben Dosa, and perhaps also the Sword of Moses. Thus,
the emergence of a first clear example of a Babylonian-Jewish magical
9

See, for example, T-S K1.143, published in J. Naveh and S. Shaked, Magic Spells and
Formulae: Aramaic Incantations of Late Antiquity (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1993),
Geniza 18.

13*

14*

Gideon Bohak and Matthew Morgenstern

recipe book whose recipes are not embedded into any literary structure
and display no thematic unity should make a major contribution to the
study of this branch of the Jewish magical tradition. This is all the more
important since this branch more or less died out in a subsequent period, as
may be seen from the very few parallels between the incantation bowls and
the magical recipes from the Cairo Genizah (or from non-Genizah Jewish
manuscripts, including Oriental ones). 10 In this respect, we may note that
our recipes too find very few close parallels among the published and
unpublished magical texts from the Cairo Genizah and that when such
parallels emerge, they are found in Cairo Genizah recipe books which
display some telltale signs of the Babylonian Jewish origin of at least some
of their recipes (see our notes to 2b:46 and 5a:4-7).
One final feature of our booklet that may be highlighted here is that
while the structure of the individual recipes is not always clear, in many
cases the incantations, including long stretches of voces magicae, seem to
precede the ritual instructions, which often are quite short. In this respect,
these recipes seem to differ from most magical recipes from the Cairo
Genizah, which usually provide the ritual instructions first and then cite the
incantations that are to be inscribed or recited. Whether this is a mere
coincidence or a more typical feature of Babylonian Jewish magic is an
issue that will have to be dealt with elsewhere, and only after more such
texts are discovered and analyzed. 11

10

For these parallels, see especially D. Levene and G. Bohak, Divorcing Lilith: From
the Babylonian Incantation Bowls to the Cairo Genizah, Journal of Jewish Studies 63
(2012): 197217. Two more parallels will be discussed in a forthcoming publication
by James Nathan Ford, but given the availability of hundreds of Genizah fragments
and hundreds of bowls, such parallels clearly are the exception rather than the rule.

11

We note, for example, the occurrence of this phenomenon in the magical recipes of
T-S Misc. 34.22, which displays many other signs of its Babylonian Jewish
provenance (and cf. below, n. 84). The instructions similarly follow the incantations in
Mandaic spells. See M. Morgenstern and T. Alfia, Arabic Magic Texts in Mandaic
Script: A Forgotten Chapter in Near-Eastern Magic, in R. Voigt (ed.), Durch Dein

A Babylonian Jewish Aramaic Magical Booklet from the Damascus Genizah

15*

In addition to the Babylonian vocalization found sporadically in the

manuscript, its Babylonian origin is manifest in several linguistic features,
which are mostly grammatical. Some of the formulae are more classicizing
than others, but many of the recognizable Babylonian dialectal features
appear both in the spells and in the instructions that accompany them
(insofar as these have been preserved in the original Aramaic).
Representative examples of Babylonian features will be cited here.
Phonology: , furthermore (1b:9) for , showing characteristic
loss of word-final . , stick in (3a:7), from root ", showing the loss
of the historical and concomitant shift to II-waw/yod class. 12
1F

Similarly, , twelve (4a:7), with loss of . , for , I ought

do (4a:3), and , I shall do (4a:3), for , from the root ",
showing the weakening of the historical and the elision of word-final . 13
12F

, amongst sorcerers (4a:7), for , showing assimilation of *s to

the pharyngealisation of the q and concomitant dissimilation of the q to k. 14
13F

Nominal plurals employing an morpheme: , mountains, (1a:3);

, angels, (1a:4); 15 , by charms, (2a:5); , in the market
14F

Wort ward jegliches Ding! /Through Thy Word All Things Were Made! II.
Mandistische und Samaritanistische Tagung / 2nd International Conference of
Mandaic and Samaritan Studies (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2013), 16379, at 164,
where it is noted that the same order is employed in Demotic magic texts.
12

See M. Morgenstern, Studies in Jewish Babylonian Aramaic Based upon Early

Eastern Manuscripts (Harvard Semitic Studies 62; Winona Lake: Indiana, 2011), 64.

13

See Morgenstern, Studies, 6668.

14

As noted already by H. L. Ginsberg, Aramaic Dialect Problems II, The American

Journal of Semitic Languages and Literatures (1936): 95103, at 96, such
dissimilation is a Mesopotamian Aramaic feature. kauma is also found in Mandaic
(E. S. Drower and R. Macuch, A Mandaic Dictionary [Oxford: Clarendon, 1963] 200
[hereafter MD]), and we may compare also JBA , locust (M. Sokoloff, A
Dictionary of Jewish Babylonian Aramaic of the Talmudic and Geonic Periods
[Ramat Gan: Bar Ilan University Press, 2002], 586 [hereafter DJBA]).

15

Although the absolute form is retained occasionally following numerals in JBA

(Morgenstern, Studies, 113), there are numerous exceptions in both Talmudic

16*

Gideon Bohak and Matthew Morgenstern

places, (3b:7); , children, (4a:1); , rooftop demons,

(7a:9); , daughters of gods, (7b:2). Nisbe plural forms employing
-: , amongst Chaldeans (4a:8). 16
15F

Pronominal suffixes: h, his, on dual and plural nouns: , his

eyes (1a:8); 17 similarly, -ah for the feminine: , her eyes (2b:12). 18
16F

17F

Verbal forms: 3rd person imperfects with n: , let him raise

(1a:8, 1b:2); , and he should draw (1b:2); , let them give me
to drink (1b:10), showing also the characteristic loss of word-final of
the object pronoun; ..., let them say let them hear (1b:11);
, let it flutter (2b:6); , may be found (4a:8).
Participle forms: , they call (2a:8). 19
18F

Participles with affixed subject pronouns: 1 m.s. . . . ,

what I say . . . and what I hear. 1 f.s. , I go out (3b:7);
manuscripts and the magic bowl corpus. The evidence of the magic bowls indicates
that the loss of the absolute in this position is a syntactic rather than phonological
phenomenon, since it also affects forms of the feminine plural. The following are
some representative examples: , seven sorcerers (MS 2053/29:7);
, and seven mbakkelas of the day and the night (MS
1927/21:11); , and behold, four beasts (JNF 259:6; JNF 19:8; JNF
147:5). The same applies to the quantifier : , all
evil spirits and wicked spirits (JNF 317:45); , all vows and
curses (JNF 7:5); , all vows and
bonds and all oaths, curses and devs and liliths (JNF 55:5).
16

See Y. Breuer, The Babylonian Aramaic in Tractate Karetot According to MS

Oxford, Aramaic Studies 5 (2007), 145 at 3132, and M. Morgenstern, Notes on
the Noun Patterns in the Yemenite Tradition of Jewish Babylonian Aramaic, Revue
des tudes Juives 168 (2009): 5183, at 76.

17

H. Juusola, Linguistic Peculiarities in the Aramaic Magic Bowl Texts (Studia

Orientalia 86; Helsinki: Finnish Oriental Society), 87.

18

On the latter, see M. Morgenstern, Linguistic Features of the Texts in this Volume,
in S. Shaked, J. N. Ford, and S. Bhayro, Aramaic Bowl Spells, Jewish Babylonian
Aramaic Bowls, vol. 1 (Brill: Leiden, 2013), 4243.

19

On this form in the Jewish Babylonian magic bowl corpus, see Juusola, Linguistic
Peculiarities, 2069.

A Babylonian Jewish Aramaic Magical Booklet from the Damascus Genizah

, I kill (3b:89), also showing the exclusively Babylonian tensemarker ;20 , that I release (4a:9). 2 f.s. in qlyt pattern: ][,
19F

you shall ru[n], (2a:5). , you shall fly and fall, (2a:6). 21
20F

Infinitives: III-yod on the pattern of miq: , to loosen

(2b:7). 22
21F

Particles: , like (2a:6, 11). . . . - , just as . . . so, (2b:5),

both Talmudic forms. 23 , upon him (2b:11). , what (4a:3
2F

bis).

24
23F

Vocabulary: , water pipe (used euphemistically for penis)

(1b:2). . . . , axe . . . and hatchet (2a:10). , forehead
(3a:3) is common in JBA and Mandaic but is attested in Syriac only in the
lexica and in the Jewish Targums only in the late Targum of Job (41:12).
, Fridays (7b:10) is used only in JBA.
Exceptional in this respect are the spell for the acquisition of
knowledge, fol. 5b6b, and perhaps the first part of the spell for protection
in 6b7a, which employ many conservative forms. The following are a few
representative examples:
y- prefix for 3rd person imperfect, 25 e.g., , that he shall hear
24F

and learn (5b:3), etc.

20

See also , I turn (X) into (Y) (4a:1). Note that in both cases, is
written as a separate particle, as is common in the better Babylonian manuscripts. See
Morgenstern, Studies, 17274.

21

2 f.s. participles in the qlyt pattern have been previously found in JBA in the magic
bowl corpus. See Morgenstern, Linguistic Features, 45.

22

S. Morag, Some Notes on the Grammar of Babylonian Aramaic as Reflected in the

Geniza Manuscripts, Tarbi 42 (197273), 6078, at 7073.

23

, a Talmudic form, already appears in a magic bowl text. See Morgenstern,

Linguistic Features, 46.

24

Ibid.

25

Juusola, Linguistic Peculiarities, 175.

17*

18*

Gideon Bohak and Matthew Morgenstern

-n affixes for imperfect plural verbs: 26 , that you will open

25F

(6a:1). , you shall (not) delay (6b:1). , that you shall

deliver me (6b:6), also employing the direct object marker y-. 27
26F

-ti affix for 1 c.s. perfect of III-yod verbs: , I conjure (5b:8), the
so-called Onkelos/Jonathan form. 28
27F

However, since many of these forms are also employed in the

Babylonian magic bowl texts, these do not necessarily prove a nonBabylonian origin.

Transliteration, Translation and Comments

In our transliteration, we use the following sigla:
[]

a lacuna in the text

a letter which is only partly preserved

(with superlinear stroke) a doubtful reading

{}

Dittography

Our translation and commentary here are kept deliberately brief and
aim to provide support for the interpretation of the text presented herein.
As the question marks between parentheses in the translation indicate,
many passages remain obscure.

26

Juusola, Linguistic Peculiarities, 17677.

27

Juusola, Linguistic Peculiarities, 22628.

28

Juusola, Linguistic Peculiarities, 17273.

A Babylonian Jewish Aramaic Magical Booklet from the Damascus Genizah

Folio 1a
1

BRYNG the dev 29 who disturbed the

28F

heavens with his (???)

2

NR WRY DWR NMY.

31

30F

I went up

0
30

the mountains,
3

and I went down the mountains, and I

F29

32

turned to the hills; I saw

31F

three angels, whose names are Gabriel

and Uziel

And Shoshiel. They said to me, NN,

'

Who overturned the m[ou]ntains

6

that you overturned and the hills that

][

you turned to I said

7

to them, I, NN, since? I wanted the

mystery of love

'
33

[ ]

F32

29

Professor Shaul Shaked has suggested to us that bryng dywh looks like an Iranian
word, but no such word exists in this form. One may think of *brng external or a
similar emendation. Such a word is unknown as the name of a demon, but is at least a
plausible designation for a demon.

30

The following historiola bears a strong resemblance to similar passages in the magic
bowl corpus and Mandaic formularies, e.g., lura -nirig silqit ldaura rba -bit hiia
akaita lmihla pt bil alaha ulmia br uma hiuara, I ascended to the mount of Nirig,
and to the great abode of the House of Life; I found Salt, daughter of the god Bel, and
Oil, son of white sesame (Zarazta -Hibil Ziua, ed. De Morgan 265/20: 4043).

31

We have presented these as magic words as we are unable to propose a coherent

translation. The first two words, may be rendered as Guardian of the
mountains or Guard mountains (imperative). . . . may be either a verb (3 m.s.
or 1 c.s. of "in qal or apil) or a noun meaning pieces of felt, belt coverings
(Sokoloff, DJBA, 755).

32

For this meaning of see M. Kahana, The Importance of Dwelling in the Land of
Israel According to the Deuteronomy Mekhilta, Tarbi 62 (1993) 50114, at 507
(Heb.).

19*

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Gideon Bohak and Matthew Morgenstern

from NN. Let him raise his eyes to

'

heaven and he shall se[e]

9

[ ]

the mystery of love from NN, Amen

Amen Sela.

10 GLN QWY SWTY KYMY YS

ZWY

11 QYNRY NDM. Say over bdellium

35

34F

and mustard . . .

36

34

'
F3

35F

Folio 1b
1

. . . over (it?) 7 times. This mystery is

appointed for NN,

33

'
37

that he should raise his water pipe and

36F

draw his bucket and drip

] [ ' '

The expression is found in the erotic bowl published by J. A.

Montgomery, Aramaic Incantation Texts from Nippur (Philadelphia: University
Museum, 1913) 28:3, 4 (p. 213).

34

Lege: .

35

Muql azraq, i.e., bdellium; see E. Lev and Z. Amar, Practical Materia Medica of the
Medieval Eastern Mediterranean According to the Cairo Genizah (Leiden: Brill,
2007), 111.

36

is the Judeo-Arabic spelling for , mustard, cognate with JBA . For

the use of mustard in aggressive magic in late-antique Babylonia, cf. the Pishra deRabbi Hanina ben Dosa:
, And if they did it to him over mustard or if they did it to him over
seed, Qariel will release and exorcise for him (Franco Michelini Tocci, Note e
documenti di letterature religiosa e parareligiosa giudaica, Annali dellIstituto
Universitario Orientale di Napoli 46 [1986], 1018, at 103).

37

Here used in a figurative manner; the same usage is found in Mandaic: mta hurak
unidalia qumtak uniqum zarnuqak ulanitikbi, extend your staff that your stature be
raised up and your pipe be erected and not brought down (DC 12: 5960). For a
similar use in Palestinian Jewish Aramaic, note the use of the Greek loan word
(tube, pipe) for the male organ, on which see S. Krauss, Griechische und lateinische
Lehnwrter im Talmud, Midrasch und Targum (2 vols.; Berlin, 189899; repr.,

A Babylonian Jewish Aramaic Magical Booklet from the Damascus Genizah

his drop in NN, in the name of BYMH

NWRYNW

SPW YDNN MSLYMS

LPLYWS
5

38

A(men) A(men) S(ela). Precious oil,

37F

precious
6

' '

00

39

40

oil, oil boiled in jasmine; noblemen

38F

39F

41

smeared it on their necks;

40F

noblewomen, on their pudenda(?), 42

41F

contentious women

Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1964) 1:383, and G. Bohak, The Magical Rotuli from the
Cairo Genizah, in G. Bohak, Y. Harari, and S. Shaked. eds., Continuity and
Innovation in the Magical Tradition (Jerusalem Studies in Religion and Culture, 15;
Leiden: Brill, 2011), 32140, at 333. , bucket, is also used as a euphemism for
the source of fecundity in a wedding poem in Jewish Palestinian Aramaic:
, may your bucket not be lacking and may you be told good
(tidings), published in M. Sokoloff and J. Yahalom, Jewish Palestinian Aramaic
Poetry From Late Antiquity (Jerusalem: Israel Academy of Science, 1999), 258, text
44*:8 (in Hebrew).
38

Compare E. S. Drower and R. Macuch, A Mandaic Dictionary (Oxford: Clarendon,

1965), 458 s.v. uma, cited from mia anat iha br uma hiuara, The oil you are,
precious, from white sesame (CP no. 23).

39

Cf. Sokoloff, DJBA, p. 674: = butter. The text could also mean oil
boiled with jasmine.

40

For the use of jasmine oil, cf. ' , on

jasmine-oil, whisper seven times and remove your clothes (T-S K 1.162, published in
P. Schfer and S. Shaked [eds.], Magische Texte aus der Kairoer Geniza III
[Tbingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1999], no. 61).

41

Derived from older . See M. Morgenstern, Linguistic Notes on Magic Bowls in

the Moussaieff Collection, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 68
(2005): 34967, at 363.

21*

22*

Gideon Bohak and Matthew Morgenstern

on the circles of their navels; the troop

on the (???) 44 of its servants
43F

smeared it. NN, in front of the house of

love(?) of the town; and furthermore,

10 from their meat let them (give me to) eat

43

F42

'''

and from their cup let them give me to

drink,

45
4F

11 what I say they let them say and what I

46

hear let them hear

45F

12 A(men) A(men) S(ela). Say at the

' ' ' '

beginning of the month when it is the

'

second (day)
Folio 2a
1

of the month and one of its other days,

47

first of all, sa[y]

2

seven times, each day three times. From

[ ]

F46

'
00

42

might be a Persian loanword for orchis, testicle, apparently employed

euphemistically for both male and female pudenda. See Claudia A. Ciancaglini,
Iranian Loanwords in Syriac (Wiesbaden: Ludwig Reichert, 2008), 138.

43

Lege: . Cf. below, 3a:8.

44

The reading is certain, but we are unable to propose a suitable interpretation.

45

Since is a transitive verb bearing the 1 c.s. object suffix (n < -ni; contrast the
following verbs , let them say, and , let them hear, without the final
n), we should similarly understand as representing a minor scribal error for
, let them give to eat.

46

Here appears in place of regular JBA . On the morphological shift of

III-ayin to III-yod in JBA, see Morgenstern, Studies, 6364.

47

The reading of the last two words is uncertain, and their meaning is unclear.

A Babylonian Jewish Aramaic Magical Booklet from the Damascus Genizah

the gloom of gloominess 48 you came

47 F

out, from the great

4

place of darkness; the evil spirit

49

Anpharid,
5

which is sent by charms; you shall

49F

ru[n] like a deer,

6

F48

50

50 F

51

52

][

51F

53

you shall fly like a wind, and you

52F

shall fall upon NN;

48

We interpret as equivalent to , darkness, which is sometimes written

with etymological in JBA (Sokoloff, DJBA, 361). ( plural emphatic)
appears to be an antonym of , radiance of sun, sunlight. For the sentence
structure, compare umn kinatun -hiia qadmaiia atit mn atra rba -nhura, you came
from the dwellings of the Primordial Life, from the great place of light (Paar Mihla,
DC 51: 1416).

49

Lege: . Compare , Infarat, the evil spirt (BM

91767:2), also written ( ibid:7), who is similarly sent against an opponent by
means of witchcraft. See M. Morgenstern, The Jewish Babylonian Aramaic Magic
Bowl BM 91767 Reconsidered, Le Muson 120 (2007): 527. Professor Shaul
Shaked has drawn our attention to the discussion of Arabic , ifrt, in A. Jeffery,
The Foreign Vocabulary of the Quran (Baroda: Oriental Institute), 215, and adds:
The Aramaic form suggests a Persian antecedent word such as *an-frd,
uncreated, and the Arabic word may be regarded as an abbreviated form.

50

Formulae like )( are common in the bowls descriptions of demons,

e.g., , from satans that are sent by charms (Moussaeiff
121:4, published in D. Levene, A Corpus of Magic Bowls: Incantation Texts in Jewish
Aramaic from Late Antiquity [London, 2003], 81). See also C. Isbell, Corpus of the
Aramaic Incantation Bowls (Missoula, Montana: Society of Biblical Literature and
Scholars Press, 1975), 63:7.

51

For the qlyt pattern of the 2 f.s. participles, see the linguistic introduction.

52

For this simile, cf. below, 6a:67: , I will run in

them like a deer that runs in the desert.

53

Cf. the anti-witchcraft spell of b. Pes 110ab:

, , may your heads grow
bald(?), may your capers flutter, may your spices be scattered, may a wind flutter the
new saffron that you are holding, you female witches.

23*

24*

Gideon Bohak and Matthew Morgenstern

7
8

like the three angels which are sent in

the clouds

][

of hail, 54 and thus they are called: 55

53F

54F

Aglit and Maglit

9

and Hadar Galat; ascend to the high

heavens and break

10 the axe from Bel and the hatchet from
Barbel(?), and they will turn back
11 like an eagle and turn back against NN.
In your name
12 YWY PY DWN YWY WRP WRP

][
56
F5

57

F 56

'

54

is paralleled in two of the bowls from the British Museum, 001A:10 and
002A:12 (J. B. Segal, Catalogue of the Aramaic and Mandaic Incantation Bowls in
the British Museum [London: British Museum Press, 2000], 4344):
, and they sent and injured her from clouds of hail.

55

Lit: they call them; is an impersonal 3 pl. participle of the Onkelos type. For the
naming of demons, compare
, They call you the blinder, the smiter, the sightless;
they call you the lame one, the scabeous, the crawler (MS 1927/8:7, in S. Shaked, J.
N. Ford, and S. Bhayro, Aramaic Bowl Spells, Jewish Babylonian Aramaic Volume 1
[Leiden: Brill, 2013], 56, with some alterations to the translation).

56

Lege: .

57

For this formula, cf. the bowl (IM 9736) republished by Ortal-Paz Saar, An
Incantation Bowl for Sowing Discord, Journal of Semitic Studies 58 (2013): 24156,
at 242, l. 7: , overturned are Bel and Abel and Nabu
and Borsip. For the reemergence of the old Mesopotamian gods in Aramaic and
Mandaic texts, see C. Mller-Kessler and K. Kessler, Sptbabylonische Gottheiten in
sptantiken mandischen Texten, Zeitschrift fr Assyriologie 89 (1999): 6587; D.
Levene and G. Bohak, A Babylonian Jewish Aramaic Incantation Bowl with a List of
Deities and Toponyms, Jewish Studies Quarterly 19 (2012): 5672.

A Babylonian Jewish Aramaic Magical Booklet from the Damascus Genizah

Folio 2b
1

H W WY YP WYP PNT PNT

NBY PNT PNT WP WP WRP

WRP. Say over dust from under a

'

corpse,
4

and put it in an amulet and hang it on

58

a bird and let it fly

5

F57

and say over it: Just as this bird

flutters, so shall the heart of (fem.)

'

59

NN flutter after

58F

NN, A(men) A(men) S(ela). For love:

0 ' '

I have love, it is mine 60

59F

SSGR MGMR, holy angels who sit

61

F60

58

For binding the text to a bird and letting it fly, see also the Genizah fragment Mosseri
Ia. 26.2, copied by Abraham ibn Yiju (probably during his stay in Aden) and
published in S. D. Goitein and Mordechai Akiva Friedman, India Book III: Abraham
ben Yij, India Trader and Manufacturer (Jerusalem: Ben-Zvi, 2010) (Heb.), 421,
][ , and bind the amulet to the leg of a bird and
let it fly, (but in a recipe to cause a person to be exiled from his community). See
also R. Campbell Thompson, The Folklore of Mossoul, Proceedings of the Society
of Biblical Archaeology 1906, 7686, 97109; 1907, 16574, 28288, 32331; 1908,
3033, no. 23.

59

For the double meaning of , which cannot be rendered into English, see the
frequent appearance of in the Babylonian Talmud, as well as
'( '' ''T-S K 1.37, published in P. Schfer and S. Shaked, eds.,
Magische Texte aus der Kairoer Geniza I [Tbingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1994], no. 4).

60

Or LY N LY HW.

61

Cf. the angels in the Horvat Rimmon erotic spell and its many parallels,
for which see Naveh-Shaked, Amulets and Magic Bowls, A10 (p. 84) and esp. Joseph
Naveh and Shaul Shaked, Magic Spells and Formulae: Aramaic Incantations of Late
Antiquity, Jerusalem: Magnes, 1993, G22, 1/9 (pp. 216, 219).

25*

26*

Gideon Bohak and Matthew Morgenstern

under the cauldron(?) of fire of the

(heavenly) Temple, to bind

10 and to loosen, that (fem.) NN shall

'

come after NN

'

11 with her mouth open and her saliva

62

dripping and her eyes

61F

12 open but not seeing, in the Name of

(??)
Folio 3a
1

and stick and bind [

] of flax,

and bury
2

at the threshold of the house or on the

][

bank
3

of the river. For sending a fire / fever

00

RH DYG??
4

..

NRWGRWY DNH B?RWN

S?NRYH D?YNGYM ?? 63
62F

of the town? Write on its 64 forehead

63F

his name [and the name]

6

66

of his mother, and this mystery on

65F

the image and ???

..

[ ]
65

F 64

...

62

Compare in Mandaic: rir daiib upum ptia, his saliva is dripping and his mouth is
open (DC 43E:8 // DC 20: 18-20). DC 43 here provides the better reading but was
erroneously read in C. Mller-Kessler, A Mandaic Incantation against an
Anonymous Dew Causing Fright (Drower Collection 20 and its variant 43 E), Aram
22 (2010): 45357, at 460.

63

The words here look like voces magicae, but one would expect instructions such as
Take mud, fashion a figurine, etc.

64

Presumably the text is referring to the production of a voodoo doll, writing on its
forehead, sticking needles in it, etc.

A Babylonian Jewish Aramaic Magical Booklet from the Damascus Genizah

and bring five needles; stick one

in its heart and one in its navel and

' '

one in its two

9

thighs, with its two hands

' '

Folio 3b
1

on its knees right [to the left, and le]ft

] [

(one) to right
2

67

and put it in a new vessel with its

6F

] [

68

[hea]d below and its legs

67 F

above, and bury it in a fresh grave

which is one day old

4

'

or two days old. [Y]DR YDR

][00 '

BWKN
5

BD BYK QW QZ 69 On the back of

68F

a lion I ride
6

and the girdle of male sorcerers and

female sorceresses I have fastened to

7

71

72

my loins. I go out in the market

70 F

71F

70
F69

places of infant(s),

65

Here and in the next two lines there is a hole in the parchment that was clearly present
before the scribe began writing his text.

66

For , note that in early Babylonian manuscripts the form of the demonstrative
pronoun is , hyi. See Morag, Some Notes, 667 (Hebrew).

67

Here and in the next line, = . Compare Th. Nldeke, Compendious Syriac
Grammar (London: Williams and Norgate, 1904), 21.

68

We take as mittaii, equivalent to , underneath. For placing the

voodoo doll upside down, note, for example T-S Ar. 43.259:
' ' , take a new cooking
pot and put lime in it and take the figurine and cast it upside-down into the pot.

69

It is unclear whether this was once a coherent text or was always magic words.

27*

28*

Gideon Bohak and Matthew Morgenstern

and in the streets that are full of

children; I
9

kill an infant in the market places and

children in

Folio 4a
1

the streets. 73 I turn wine into vinegar

72F

and old wine

2

74
73F

into ???, 76 white flour into ashes

75F

{ashes}, barley

75

F 74

70

There is a hole in the parchment, here and in the next line, that was clearly present
before the scribe began writing his text.

71

, I have fastened, represents the ql li syntagm. Compare the Mandaean

Zarazta d-Hibil Ziua: himiana d-birqa mhilia bhalai, I have fastened a girdle of
lightening to my loins (DC 44: 505-6). For loins, JBA commonly employs ,
pl. ( Sokoloff, DJBA, 484), though the by-form is already found in the Dead
Sea Scrolls (see M. Morgenstern et al., The Hitherto Unpublished Columns of the
Genesis Apocryphon, Abr-Nahrain 33 [1999]: 3054, at 35) and late Mandaic (MD
125) and is the regular form in Classical Syriac (see M. Sokoloff, A Syriac Lexicon
[Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns], 482). Dr. Y. Z. Stampfer has drawn our attention to
the use of in Geonic citation from b. Gi 78a. See Z. Stampfer, Laws of Divorce
(Kitb al-alq) by Samuel ben ofni Gaon (Jerusalem: Ben Zvi Institute, 2008), 92.

72

and the following verbs represent 1 f. participle forms, characteristic of the

best textual witnesses of Jewish Babylonian Aramaic. See Morgenstern, Studies,
12022, and M. Morgenstern, Rare Forms in Eastern Aramaic, Language Studies
(Heb., forthcoming).

73

For this section, see Shaked, Ford, and Bhayro, Aramaic Bowl Spells, 202, and
additional parallels in M. Morgenstern and M. Schlter, A Mandaic Amulet on
Lead, Martin Schyen Collection MS 2087/1 Eretz Israel, (Joseph Naveh Memorial
volume), forthcoming.

74

is a phonetic spelling of .

75

Dittography?

76

We are unable to offer a satisfactory explanation for the word , which

presumably refers to some acidic substance into which wine may deteriorate.

A Babylonian Jewish Aramaic Magical Booklet from the Damascus Genizah

flour into dust and ashes? 77 What

76F

ought I do 78 to him, and what

7F

79

shall I do to him, to NN? I shall take

F78

'

his thorn(?) / spirit(?) from him,

5

and I shall cast it in a tube, I shall seal

it with pitch
6

and bury it in the earth and trample it

with my heels
7

for twelve months of the year; so that

neither amongst magicians nor

8

amongst Chaldaeans 80 shall a healer

79 F

be found for him, un[til?]

9

81

I release him and he dies. Say (it) over

F80

a green lizard

'

Folio 4b
1 seven times in a reed tube and bury

' '

(it) in the inner

2 threshold. 00 SS WWSYS

00

WHWDYH

77

Perhaps this is for , like Hebrew .

78

On the Babylonian forms and , both derived from the root ", see
Morgenstern, Studies, 6668.

79

Lege: ?

80

The expression is also attested in the Klagsbald bowl, AMB 13:13

(J. Naveh and S. Shaked, Amulets and Magic Bowls: Aramaic Incantations of Late
Antiquity [Jerusalem: Magnes, 1987], 200).

81

There is a hole in the parchment, which was probably there before the scribe began
writing his text.

29*

30*

Gideon Bohak and Matthew Morgenstern

82

3 WHWDYRYH, send, send against

'
F 81

him, NN

'

4 the fire of a spell; say (it) over 7 ??? 83

82F

' ' ' :

of ???, and place it in the socket

5 of the door. Skull, GPNM
WNY?SGP
6 I have adjured you, NWRDPYS the
satan, that you shall go
7 and cast fire upon NN, that it may
dance 85 upon you,
84F

8 on him on him on you on you on him

Amen Amen Sela.

84

0
F83

'][ ''

Folio 5a
1

Say (it) over the (???) . . . the white son

of an egg, which

' ' ] [

82

A similar set of voces magicae appears in the Sword of Moses:

, I am SSY SS WSYSYH WPRGSYH, the
speedy messenger; see Yuval Harari, Harba de-Moshe (The Sword of Moses): A New
Edition and a Study Jerusalem: Academon, 1997) (Heb.), 26.

83

This may be the same as b. abb. 140b (Sokoloff, DJBA, 192), the meaning of
which remains unknown.

84

This spell has a partial parallel in T-S Misc. 34.22 (a fragment whose magical recipes
display a strong Babylonian influence): ?

. / ? ?? / ??
''/ , (For) sending fire: NH
skull, N skull, KM WHNM KM WHNM N WHNM NH WHNM, I adjure you
and I conjure? you .D RWM, the evil satan who sits over three hundred and sixty
satans, go down and bring down fire on NN, etc.
85

The meaning of "in this context is uncertain. It could mean to dance, flutter (see
Sokoloff, A Syriac Lexicon, 1485), or perhaps to tremble (denominative of ,
DJBA 1077).

A Babylonian Jewish Aramaic Magical Booklet from the Damascus Genizah

no chicken has mounted and ??? and

86

F 85

slaughter/cook
3
4

and put it on the egg(?)/in his hand(?) and

6
7

F 86

??? from the sackcloth garment and bury it

[ ]

under an oven. 00 For (going before) a

A(men) S(ela). Say? (it) over

00
00

88

'
'

straw from a locked gate ???

governor: FWT WFY

5

87

F87

RPT TS SDM RGM DRWS A(men)

90

and place it behind your ear, and write

89F

89
F8

??? amulet(?)
8

and (it is) good and tried and tested. 00

00

Folio 5b
1

Do (it) for your Name, for the sake of

[ ]

[your name]. This amulet

2

91

is appointed for the name of NN, that

90F

you may open his

86

' ''

Lege: '', i.e. ''.

87

Lege: ?

88

The magic words are vocalized with Babylonian vocalization.

89

There is a hole, or some other irregularity in the parchment, that was clearly there
before the scribe began writing his text.

90

Note a somewhat similar recipe in Bod. Heb. e 74.21 (a folio from the same
manuscript as the two fragments published by Schfer and Shaked, Magische Texte
III, no. 69, which display a Babylonian vocalization): ' :
, to be saved from a
time of trouble, say three times over a knot of hay LGT LGM SKR BLM and place it
behind your ear.

91

This is a common formula in the bowls, e.g.:

- , This amulet is appointed for the healing and protection and
sealing of the house of . . . (Gordon A:1, published in C. H. Gordon, Aramaic Magic

31*

32*

Gideon Bohak and Matthew Morgenstern

foolish 92 heart to all words of the Torah,

91F

that he shall hear and learn,

4

and all that he learns he shall not forget.

94

F 92

holy, PMNY PTPTY PTPYH holy,

GSN
MYN holy, SYS HNH HYG holy,

SPYH holy, WH NPNT HWH holy,

STW

THPGYH
7

93F

93

QQP HH WH YH
5

NQSS Q?W? safeguarded, 96 holy. I

95F

95

F94

conjure
9

you and adjure you,

Bowls in the Istanbul and Baghdad Museums, Archiv Orientln 6 [1934]: 31934, at
321).
92

Sokoloff, DJBA 514, reconstructs the singular of this adjectival form as . On

the merger of the noun marker - and the adjectival/gentilic morpheme -, see M.
Morgenstern, Notes on the Noun Patterns in the Yemenite Tradition of Jewish
Babylonian Aramaic, Revue des tudes Juives 168 (2009): 5183, at 7579, where
evidence is also cited for alternative plural forms , and .

93

For the following set of voces magicae, note a similar sequence in MS New York
Public Library 190 (olim Sassoon 56), p. 77, lines 79:
/ ''' / , and
by this great, precious, and holy name, H(oly), H(oly), H(oly), P (=WH in atbash)
QH WHWH Holy PPWTMY QTNYH Holy QTR NQSSH NSPRH.

94

The series of voces magicae in lines 48 is characterized by the repetitive structure

XXX + Yh qadosh, and if we omit the initial aleph, we may note that the individual
sequences begin with , , , , , ,, which may indicate an earlier attempt at an
acrostic arrangement of this series.

95

There is a hole, or some other irregularity in the parchment, that was clearly there
before the scribe began writing his text.

96

Compare Mandaic smir, well preserved, safeguarded, in MD 333 s.v. SMR.

A Babylonian Jewish Aramaic Magical Booklet from the Damascus Genizah

Folio 6a
1

and place an oath upon you, 97 that you

96F

will open my heart, me

2

NN, and you will make (it) wise for

Torah, and you will remove the

'

foolishness
3

of the 98 heart from the heart of me, I,

97F

99

NN, and you will see/make seen and

98F

[''' ]

open
4

my heart , I, NN, like the heart of

Metatron and like the heart of

Moses son of Amram, and teach me

the six columns of the Tal[mud]

100

9F

in six(?) years, and I will run in them

like a deer that runs

102

10F

in the desert and guard in my belly all

that I learn, and what I learn

from this day and forever, and teach

me words of Torah and wisdom,

[ ]

101
F10

97

This is a common formula in the bowls, e.g.:

in an unpublished bowl (SAD 31) brought to our attention by Dan Levene.

98

Lit.: his.

99

If the text is not corrupt (lege: , as in the previous line?), then we have here a
rare example of the root "used in a Babylonian text. This spell is in general very
conservative in its language.

100

This expression apparently refers to the six orders of classical rabbinic literature,
though the use of , columns, in this context is unusual.

101

Lege: .

102

The use of the correlative pronoun with participle is regarded as characteristic of the
Palestinian transmission of rabbinic Hebrew. See M. Bar-Asher, Mishnaic Hebrew:
An Introductory Survey, Hebrew Studies 40 (1999): 11551, at 132.

33*

34*

Gideon Bohak and Matthew Morgenstern

Folio 6b
1

so that everything that I will hear I will

learn

104

103F

at once.

105
104F

And you shall not

103
F102

delay
2

this oath and this adjuration, and by the

name of YH HW

H WH WH HW HY KYN HYHYH

YH WH YH HH YH YHW

HY HH WH HYW HYH YH WH.

Blessed is the name of the honor of

5

his [king]dom forever and ever.

][

Furthermore, I adjure you and decree

upon you and place an oath upon you,

that you shall deliver me, I, NN,

7

'

from all evil demons and from demons,

whether demons of the day

F105

or demons of the night, and all demons

and demons which stand

106

Folio 7a
1

before me, I, NN, smite them

'

in the name of these letters by

which I adjured y[ou]

103

Lege: , or perhaps .

104

Or: teach me. See previous note.

105

may be a calque on Aramaic , in one go. Standard Hebrew for

time (French fois rather than temps) would be .
Lege: .

106

A Babylonian Jewish Aramaic Magical Booklet from the Damascus Genizah

and by the name HWH YH YH

HW HH HYW HW
4

HH HY YH WH WHW HH YH
YH YHW HY forever.

Sealed and counter-sealed (is) NN

and harmers and devils and evil
or female, whether of the day or

]

][

demons and devs and Liliths and

from idol-spirits

of the night, and from

8

spirits, [whether male]

7

F106

from demons and spark-demons

6

107

][

and from the rooftop-demons

108

107F

and from the sixty-six (demons)

which are
10

in the world. 109 All who stand

108F

before me,

107

Lege: ?

108

On the identification of roof demons as demons causing epilepsy, see T. Kwasman,

The Demon of the Roof, in I. Finkel and M. J. Geller, eds., Disease in Babylonia
(Leiden: Brill, 2007), 16072, esp. 16569.

109

This list of demons finds ample parallels in the bowls. For the number sixty-six, cf.,
e.g., , In the name of
idqiyyah who is the chief of sixty-six angels who are appointed over her blood
(Moussaeiff 155:10, published in Levene, Corpus, 111) or
, by the signet ring of Solomon son
of David, the king of Israel, by which are sealed three hundred and sixty six demons
(VA 3854:1518, published in D. Levene, Heal O Israel: A Pair of Duplicate Magic
Bowls from the Pergamon Museum in Berlin, Journal of Jewish Studies 54 [2003]:
10421, at 105).

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Gideon Bohak and Matthew Morgenstern

Folio 7b
1

I, will be killed by a great killing, just

as were killed

110

109F

the seven daughters of the gods and

the eight daughters of the female

3

ishtars. By the name of HY HY HWH

HY HH HW HH
4

YH HY HH WH HY HW HH WH

A(men) A(men) S(elah) YHH WYH

HW YH WH WYHH KYN

114

13F

M.

Say(?) (it) 23 (or, on 3?) Fridays,

before dusk

F12

' '

115

just as ??? (when he heats an oven?)

F1

113

14F

112

This adjuration.
7

YH HH HH YW HW HH WH WH
6

F10

YH YHW HY the eternal(?)

5

111

when the day sets and he should

immerse (himself in)

110

On the apocopated form of the 3 m.p. perfect see Morgenstern, Studies, 18689 (with
previous literature).

111

For a partial parallel in the bowls, see

, where there dwell these seven sons of gods who know seven powerful

112

Lege: ?

words (Moussaieff 163:9, published in Levene, Corpus, 122).

113

Lege: ?

114

The sequence WYHH KYN might be construed as garbled Aramaic, but note a similar
sequence in 6b:3.

115

For , compare Mandaic masmikana (dusk), which stands in contrast to

madnaha (dawn): mn madnaha ualma lmasmikana umn masmikana ualma lmadnaha,
from dawn to dusk and from dusk to dawn (Paar Mihla, DC 51: 300302).

A Babylonian Jewish Aramaic Magical Booklet from the Damascus Genizah

water, and come out(?) from the dawn

of the Friday,
10

and he should sit in fasting for three

'

Fridays,
11

and keep away from sexual

intercourse.

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Gideon Bohak and Matthew Morgenstern

Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin - Preuischer Kulturbesitz

Orientabteilung, MS Or. Sim. 6

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Gideon Bohak and Matthew Morgenstern

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