Book of Jubilees

Book of Jubilees 14

XIV.4 After these things/in the fourth year of this week, on the newmoon of the third month^ the word of the Lord came to Abram in a dream, saying : " Fear not, Abram ; I am thy defender, and thy reward will be exceeding great." 2. And he said : 11 Lord, Lord, what wilt thou give me, seeing I go 1 Charles suspects a lacuna at the beginning of 25. It no doubt contained an account of the pursuit of the kings and told of Melchizedek (cf. Gen. xiv. 15-20). That Abraham should have given tithes to Melchizedek (who was uncircum- cised) was a difficulty to later Jews (cf. Justin, Trypho xix.). One way of overcoming it was to identify Melchizedek with Shem. 1 The law about tithes is made to apply for the Levitical / priesthood; cf. xxxii. 15. ' For 28-29 cf. Gen. xiv. 21-24. 4 For 1-6 cf. Gen. xv. 1-6. 96 THE BOOK OF JUBILEES [chap, xiv hence childless, and the son of Mas^q,1 the son of my handmaid, is the Dammasek Eliezer : he will be my heir, and to me thou hast given no seed." 3. And He said unto him : " This (man) will not be thy heir, but one that will come out of thine own bowels ; he will be thine heir." 4. And He brought him forth abroad, and said unto him : " Look toward heaven and number the stars, if thou art able to number them." 5. And he looked toward heaven, and beheld the stars. And He said unto him : " So shall thy seed be." 6. And he believed in the Lord, and it was counted to him for righteousness. 7. And He said unto him : "I am the Lord that Drought thee out of Ur of the Chaldees, to give thee the land of the Canaanites to possess it for ever; and I shall be God unto thee and to thy seed after thee."1 8. And he said: "Lord, Lord, whereby shall I know that I shall inherit (it) ? " 9. And he said unto him : ." Take Me an heifer of three years, and a goat of three years, and a sheep of three years, and a turtle-dove, and a pigeon." 8 10. And he took all these in the middle of the month ; and he dwelt at the oak of Mamre, which is near Hebron.4 II. And he built there an altar, and sacrificed all these ; and he poured their blood upon the altar, and divided them in the midst, and laid them over against each other; but the birds divided he not. 12. And birds came down upon the pieces, and Abram drove them away, and did not suffer the birds to touch them.5 13. And it came to pass, when the sun had set, that an ecstasy fell upon Abram, and lo ! an horror of great darkness fell upon him, and it was said unto Abram : " Know of a surety that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land (that is) not theirs, and they will bring them into bondage, and afflict them foji*- 1 Wrongly taken as a proper narne (cf. R.V.). So LXX. * Cf. Gen. xv. 7. • For &-9 cf. Gen. xv. 6-9. 4 Cf. Gen. xiv. 13. 1 For 11-12 cf. Gen. xv. 10-11. Chap.Xiv] THE BOOK OF JUBILEES . 97 hundred years. l_ 14. And the nation also to whom they will be in bondage shall I judge, and after that they will come forth thence with much substance. 15. And thou wilt go to thy fathers in peace, and be buried in a good old age. 16. But in the fourth generation * they will return hither ; for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full." s 17. And he awoke from his sleep, and he arose, and the sun had set ; and there was a flame, and behold 1 a furnace was smoking, and a flame of fire passed between the pieces. 18. And on that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying : " To thy seed will I give this land, from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates, the Kenites, the Kenizzites, the Kad- monites, the Perizzites, and the Rephaim, the Phakor- ites,4 and the Hivites,5 and the Amorites, and the Canaanites, and the Girgashites, and the Jebusites." 6 19. And the day passed, and Abram offered the pieces, and the birds, and their fruit -offerings, and their drink- offerings, and the fire devoured them. 20. And on that day 7 we made a covenant with Abram, according as we had covenanted with Noah in this_month ; 8 and Abram renewed the festival and ordinance for himself for ever. 1 Cf. Gen. xv. 13, but Exod. xii. 40 gives the number 430. Tradition assumes that the number includes the sojourn of the Patriarchs in Canaan. Our text reckons the period from the birth of Isaac (when Abraham was 100 years old). St. Paul (Gal. iii. 16-17) reckons 430 years from the announce- ment. According to Targ. Ps.-Jon. on Exod. xii. 40 f., the odd 30 years cover the period between the announcement and Isaac's birth. • A generation = 100 years. Isaac was born when Abra- ham was 100 years old (Gen. xxi. 5). • For 13-16 cf. Gen. xv. 12-16. 4 Absent from MT (which inserts " Hittite " before " Periz- tite "). • So LXX and Sam. here (Gen. xv. 20) ; but MT, Syr. and Vulg. omit. • For 17-18 cf. Gen. xv. 17-21. ' t. e. the 15th of Sivan. ■ Probably, according to our author, on the same day of the month. G 98 THE BOOK OF JUBILEES [chap, Xiv The Birth of Ishmael (xiv. 21-24; c^« G^n- xvi. 1-4. 11). 21. And Abram rejoiced, and made all these things known to Sarai his wife ; and he believed that he would have seed, but she did not bear. 22. And Sarai advised her husband Abram, and said unto him : " Go in unto Hagar, my Egyptian maid : it may be that I shall build up seed unto thee by her. ' 23. And Abram hearkened unto the voice of Sarai his wife, and said unto her, "Do (so)." And Sarai took Hagar, her maid, the Egyptian, and gave her to Abram, her husband, to be his wife. 24. And he went in unto her, and she conceived and bare him a son, and he called his name Ishmael, in the r^65 a.m. fifth year of this week ; and this was the eighty-sixth year in the life of Abram. The Feast of First-fruits. Circumcision in- stituted. The Promise of Isaac's Birth. Circumcision ordained for all Israel (xv. 1-34; cf. Gen. xvii.).