myriads of miles in width and twelve myriads of miles in length.
In the first division dwell the proselytes who embraced Judaism
of their own free will, not from compulsion. The walls are of
glass and the wainscoting of cedar. The prophet Obadiah,[91]
himself a proselyte, is the overseer of this first division. The
second division is built of silver, and the wainscoting thereof
is of cedar. Here dwell those who have repented, and Manasseh,
the penitent son of Hezekiah, presides over them. The third
division is built of silver and gold. Here dwell Abraham, Isaac,
and Jacob, and all the Israelites who came out of Egypt, and the
whole generation that lived in the desert.[92] Also David is
there, together with all his sons[93] except Absalom, one of
them, Chileab, still alive. And all the kings of Judah are there,
with the exception of Manasseh, the son of Hezekiah, who presides
in the second division, over the penitents. Moses and Aaron
preside over the third division. Here are precious vessels of
silver and gold and jewels and canopies and beds and thrones and
lamps, of gold, of precious stones, and of pearls, the best of
everything there is in heaven.[94] The fourth division is built
of beautiful rubies,[95] and its wainscoting is of olive wood.
Here dwell the perfect and the steadfast in faith, and their
wainscoting is of olive wood, because their lives were bitter as
olives to them. The fifth division is built of silver and gold
and refined gold,[96] and the finest of gold and glass and
bdellium, and through the midst of it flows the river Gihon. The
wainscoting is of silver and gold, and a perfume breathes through
it more exquisite than the perfume of Lebanon. The coverings of
the silver and gold beds are made of purple and blue, woven by
Eve, and of scarlet and the hair of goats, woven by angels. Here
dwells the Messiah on a palanquin made of the wood of Lebanon,