Jasher

THE BOOK OF, that is, the book of the upright, or of the excellent, noble-minded. This work is mentioned in Jos 10:13, and 2Sa 1:18, and would seem to have been a collection of national, historical, triumphal, and elegiac songs, which was still extant in the time of David. Josephus speaks of a book of Jasher as then existing in the temple, but nothing is known respecting it. The books now published under this name are gross forgeries.\par

A book alluded to only in Jos 10:13 as containing Joshua’s, miracle of commanding the sun and the moon to stand still; 2Sa 1:18 as containing David’s elegy over Saul and Jonathan, entitled the "bow" song, celebrating Jonathan famous for the bow (compare 2Sa 1:22 and Psalm 60), a national song to be "taught’" to the people (not "he bade them teach the children of Judah (the use of) the bow"): Deu 31:19. (See DAVID.) Jasher means upright. Jeshurun is the upright nation (so in its ideal), namely, Israel. So Septuagint "the book of the upright one"; Vulgate "the book of just ones"; the Syriac, "the book of praise songs," from Hebrew yashir. Exo 15:1, "then sang." This Book of Jasher was a kind of national sacred songbook, continued from age to age, according as great crises moved Israelites to mighty deeds, and poets to immortalize them; like the "chronicles" of the kings of Israel often alluded to in later times.

So the Book of Psalms, beginning with David’s, received fresh accessions from age to age down to the time of the return from Babylon, when it was completed. "The Book of the Wars of the Lord" (Num 21:14-15) similarly records in sacred odes Israel’s triumphant progress; of these we have left the fragment as to passing the Arnon, the song of the well, and that on the conquest of Sihon’s kingdom (Num 21:17-18; Num 21:27-30). The Targum and Jarchi explain, "the book of the law." Jerome (on Isa 44:2) mentions that Genesis was called" the book of the just." The only two specimens of the Book of Jasher extant are rhythmical. In this respect, and in its being uninspired or at least not preserved as part of our inspired canon, this book differs from the Pentateuch; both alike record successively the exploits of Jeshurun, the ideally upright nation.