Musar zu Jehoschua 10:13

Sefer Hayashar, the Book of Righteousness, was probably written in the 13th century. The title is a Biblical one. In Joshua 10:13 we read concerning the miracle of the sun standing still: “Is not this written in the Book of Yashar?” Again in Second Samuel, we have the lament of David for King Saul and Jonathan: “Behold, it is written in the Book of Yashar.” In the 11th century, there appeared a Sefer Hayashar which retold the Biblical account from creation to the time of the Judges.²Dictionary Catalog of the Jewish Collection The New York Public Library Reference Department (Boston: G. K. Hall & Co., 1960), Vol. 2, p. 1375—Jacob Ilive, Book of Jasher, Bristol 1829. A British Abbot claimed to have discovered the Biblical Sefer Hayashar in the Holy Land. It was published several times in England and the United States. Our Sefer Hayashar, a most popular ethical text in the Middle Ages, was first printed in Constantinople around 1520, in Venice in 1554, in Cracow in 1584, in Prague in 1588 and in Amsterdam in 1708.³C. D. Friedberg, Bet Eked Sefarim (Tel Aviv: M. A. Bar-Juda, 1951), Vol. 2, p. 451, No. 1116. Since these earlier editions, there have been almost fifty other editions.