The Sword of Moses (Harba de-Moshe)

The Sword of Moses is a Jewish magical treatise in Hebrew and Aramaic built around a long series of divine and angelic names, called the 'sword', which the adept may wield after a period of purification. It belongs to the same world as Hekhalot literature and the late antique Jewish magical texts, and it is usually dated to late antiquity or the early Middle Ages. Moses Gaster, Romanian-born Chief Rabbi of the Sephardi community in London, published it in 1896 from a manuscript in his own collection, written in the thirteenth or fourteenth century, which he recovered from a bundle of damaged leaves. The text has three parts. The first, mostly in Hebrew, describes the heavenly origin of the sword, the angels who guard it, and the preparations of fasting and purity needed to receive and use it. The second is the sword itself, a list that Gaster numbered into 136 sections of names. The third, mostly Aramaic, is a collection of practical recipes for healing, protection, love, harm and divination, each keyed to a section of names. Gaster's edition, now on the archive, was pioneering but based on a single faulty copy. Yuval Harari's 1997 Hebrew critical edition and study, using better manuscripts, is now standard, and his later English work places the text within the broader history of Jewish magic before Kabbalah.

What it contains

• Narrative of the heavenly origin of the Sword
• Purification, fasting and ritual preparation
• Angelic guardians of the divine names
• The 'sword': a long list of divine and angelic names
• Practical recipes for healing, protection, love and harm
• Aramaic conjurations and a second shorter text