The Concept of Covenant in Jubileestext for the revelation of the book itself is the making (or better, the remak
ing or the renewal) of covenant at Sinai. The date given for Moses' ascent to
the top of Sinai to receive the tablets of "the law and the commandments"
(prologue and i:i),^3 the sixteenth day of the third month, is significant in
this regard. That is, Moses ascended the mount the day after the covenant-
making rites had been performed at the foot of Sinai on the fifteenth day of
the third month, which Jubilees repeatedly identifies as the day of covenant
making and for commemorating and renewing the covenant.^4
The covenantal significance of the book is clearly expressed in Jub 1:5,
where God speaks to Moses and commands him to give careful attention to all
he will be told, recording it in a book for the descendants of Israel, who will,
God asserts, violate the covenant God is making with them (cf. 1:7 and 1:22).
Nevertheless, God makes a firm prior commitment not to break faith with
them. God will not abandon the rebellious chosen people: "Write (them) in a
book so that their offspring^5 may see that I have not abandoned them because
of all the evil they have done in straying from the covenant^6 between me and
you which I am making^7 today on Mount Sinai for their offspring."
- Unless otherwise indicated, English translations of the Ethiopic version of Jubilees
are from J. C. VanderKam, The Book of jubilees, CSCO 511, Scriptores Aethiopici 88 (Louvain:
Peeters, 1989). I will also refer to O. S. Wintermute's English translation ("Jubilees," in OTP,
2:52-142), K. Berger's German rendering (Unterweisung in erzahlender Form: Das Buch der
jubilaen, JSHRZ2.3 [Gutersloh: Gtitersloher Verlagshaus Gerd Mohn, 1981]), and the mod
ern Hebrew rendering by M. Goldmann ("•',7DT,n "ISO," in •"'JTSTin D'HDOn, ed. Abraham
Kahana, 2 vols. [Jerusalem: Makor, 1978], 1:216-313). For the Ethiopic text, I follow J. C.
VanderKam, The Book of jubilees: A Critical Text, CSCO 510, Scriptores Aethiopici 87
(Louvain: Peeters, 1989). For the fragmentary Hebrew manuscripts from Qumran, I have
used the edition of J. C. VanderKam and J. T. Milik in Qumran Cave 4.VIII: Parabiblical
Texts, Part 1, DJD 13 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1994). - On the identification and significance of the fifteenth day of the third month and
of the date of Moses' ascent, see Jaubert, Notion dAlliance, 103-4; VanderKam, "Covenant
and Biblical Interpretation," 93; VanderKam, "Studies on the Prologue and jubilees 1," in For
a Later Generation: The Transformation of Tradition in Israel, Early Judaism, and Early Chris
tianity, ed. Randal A. Argall, Beverly A. Bow, and Rodney A. Werline (Harrisburg, Pa.: Trin
ity, 2000), 266-79 (here 273-79). - Heb. (4Q216 I 13), QnTm, "their generations."
- VanderKam correctly, in my view, renders the Ethiopic /"d'T* (ser'dt) here to re
flect n1-n in the original Hebrew. See also Wintermute. Berger renders it "Ordnung," as if
Hebrew npn had been present. Christiansen ("Covenant Consciousness," 76 n. 35) follows
Berger and makes far too much of this translation, arguing that the "covenant" referred to in
Jub 1:5 is to be distinguished from what had been established at the foot of Sinai. For further
discussion of "covenant" terms in Jubilees, see the appendix to this chapter. - Heb. (4Q216 i 14), miD, "cutting."