The Concept of Covenant in Jubilees
victims up in the altar fire, along with cereal offerings and wine (14:19). Here
we see again the basic pattern that is crucial for Jubilees. The enacting of
covenant by God always follows from and is intimately bound up with sacri
fice. In the next chapter, reflecting this pattern, Jubilees adds sacrifice where
it is completely absent in the biblical source text.
V. Covenant and Circumcision
Jub 15 is based on Gen 17, a central covenantal passage in Genesis. Jubilees
builds on the covenantal emphasis of the source text in some significant
ways. First, as I have noted, the author adds sacrificial actions as precursors
to the theophany and announcement of the covenant (Jub 15:2). Further
more, the author provides the crucial date for Abram's sacrificial perfor
mance, the middle of the third month, in connection with the festival of
firstfruits, the covenant festival (15:1). In this chapter Abram is shown as act
ing on his own initiative, faithfully adhering to the provisions of the renewed
covenant he has inherited from Noah. He celebrates the primary festival of
God's covenant (cf. 1:10) on the specified date, doing what Noah's other de
scendants had failed to do, thereby renewing the covenant (cf. 6:17). God's
response is to renew the covenant with Abram, adding to it a provision, the
sign of circumcision.
This sign, however, is not really new, as the elaboration added to the
biblical source text makes clear. Circumcision, as a way to mark the elect as
distinct from the rest of humankind, functions to assimilate them to the su
pernatural realm. The angels, according to Jubilees, were created circum
cised. Circumcision of those who belong to the elect people allows them to
share in this heavenly perfection (15:27).^13 Whereas in Gen 17 circumcision is
a mark of membership in the chosen family of Abraham, distinguishing its
members from nonmembers, in Jubilees circumcision transforms a human
body to the likeness of the angelic body, effecting an ontological change. It
also, even more crucially, binds the circumcised male to God: "he belongs to
the Lord" (Jub 15:26b). Gen 17 makes no mention of a bond with God. Again,
the covenant is not itself the relationship. It is the enactment of that rela
tionship. God has chosen Israel to be his unique possession, to hold the sta-
- Christiansen, "Covenant Consciousness," 98-99. Circumcision also protects
against demonic forces. See Gianantonio Borgonovo, "Jubilees' Rapprochement of Enochic
and Mosaic Traditions," Hen 30, no. 2 (2008).
