3. _Righteousness identified with the keeping of the law_. For the Pharisaic Jew righteousness meant simply the keeping of the law. Thus xv. 5: 'Man would not have rightly understood My judgement if he had not accepted the law.' Again, lxvii. 6: 'So far as Zion is delivered up and Jerusalem laid waste ... the vapour of the smoke of the incense of righteousness which is by the law is extinguished in Zion.' Thus the merits of Abraham are attributed to his having kept the law before it was written. lvii. 2: 'At that time the unwritten law was named among them, and the works of the commandments were then fulfilled.' Of course it must be said that 'the Law' may mean the ceremonial law, as in the lower form of Jewish thought, or special stress may be laid on its moral precepts, as is the case in Baruch, and in the higher Jewish teaching generally. {261} 4. _The Gentiles are therefore incapable of righteousness_. lxii. 7: 'But regarding the Gentiles it were tedious to tell how they always wrought impiety and wickedness, and never wrought righteousness.' Thus the best hope of the Gentiles is that in the Messianic kingdom they should become servants to Israel. This will be their lot if they have never vexed the holy people; see lxxii. 2-6. 5. _The world created on account of Israel_, xiv. 18: 'Thou didst say that Thou wouldst make for Thy world man as the administrator of Thy works, that it might be known that he was by no means made on account of the world but the world on account of him. [But "man" is at once interpreted as the Jewish race.] And now I see that as for the world which was made on account of us, lo! it abides, but we on account of whom it was made depart' [i.e. into captivity], xv. 7: 'As regards what thou didst say touching the righteous, that on account of them has this world come into being, nay more, even that world which is to come is on their account.' xxi. 23: 'Reprove therefore the angel of death ... and let the treasuries of souls restore them that are enclosed in them, for there have been many years like those that are desolate, from the days of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and of all those who are like them, who sleep in the earth, on whose account Thou didst say that Thou hadst created the world.' (This idea of the treasury of the souls of the righteous recurs in xxx. 2.) In _The Assumption of Moses_ (i. 12) it is said, 'God hath created the world on behalf of His people. But He was not pleased to manifest this purpose of creation from the foundation of the world, in order that the Gentiles might thereby be convicted [i.e. of ignorance], yea to their own humiliation might by their arguments convict one another.'