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Jasher

Fausset's Bible Dictionary

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Thompson Chain Reference
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Easton's Bible Dictionary
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• יָשָׁר , יָשָׁר

A book alluded to only in Joshua 10:13 as containing Joshua's, miracle of commanding the sun and the moon to stand still; 2 Samuel 1:18 as containing David's elegy over Saul and Jonathan, entitled the "bow" song, celebrating Jonathan famous for the bow (compare 2 Samuel 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"): Deuteronomy 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 . Exodus 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" (Numbers 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 (Numbers 21:17-18; Numbers 21:27-30). The Targum and Jarchi explain, "the book of the law." Jerome (on Isaiah 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.