David W. Suter
the use of the tithe in the context of Levi's investiture as priest. The intro
duction of Passover at the end of the narrative probably reflects the fact that
this festival has such a strong historic context that it would be difficult to ex
ercise creative anachronism in including it in the practice of the patriarchs.^12
On the other hand, the presentation of the Sabbath in Jubilees is a puz
zle. The celebration of the festival is first mentioned in conjunction with the
Garden of Eden, where we are told that the Sabbath is a festival intended for
Israel alone, and where the angels of the presence and the angels of sanctifi-
cation, the two highest angelic orders, are depicted as observing the Sabbath
in heaven from the beginning. The connection of Israel with the two highest
orders of angels is significant. The angelic observance of the Sabbath sug
gests the much more elaborate Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice from the Dead
Sea Scrolls, and this may be the only point in Jubilees where the celestial
temple comes into play. There is no indication, however, that Adam and Eve
observe the Sabbath, in spite of Adam's role in initiating the priestly cultus
with the morning offering of incense, and there is no indication of the ob
servance of the Sabbath by the patriarchs^13 — although there is apparently
an attempt in 2:24 to link the blessing of the Sabbath to the blessing of the
seed of Jacob.^14 It could be noted also that Adam and Eve reside in Eden for a
Sabbath of years (3:15-16). However, while the passage dealing with creation
and the observance of the Sabbath by the angels includes the Sabbath law
(2:17-33), the introduction of the Sabbath to Israel comes at the very end of
the book, when the festival becomes the final thing revealed to Moses in
chap. 50 following the institution of Passover in chap. 49. Such an arrange
ment is particularly curious given the prominence of sabbaths of years in the
calendrical system utilized in Jubilees. The selective anachronism of Jubilees,
which reads the sacrificial cultus of the temple back into the practice of the
patriarch, does not seem to include the observance of the Sabbath at the hu-
- However, see the essay in the present volume by B. Halpern-Amaru, "The Festivals
of Pesah and Massot in the Book of Jubilees," which convincingly relates Passover in Jub 49
to the seven-day festival in Jub 18:17-19 resulting from the narrative of the Akedah, leaving us
only with the Sabbath without patriarchal roots. - In her study of the calendar at Qumran, A. Jaubert argues that in Jubilees there is
one day upon which the patriarchs do not travel, which must therefore be the Sabbath (The
Date of the Last Supper [Staten Island, N.Y.: Alba House, 1965], 27). Her argument would give
us an implicit rather than an explicit observance in Jubilees of the Sabbath by the patriarchs;
however, after detailed analysis in "A Reexamination of the Calendar in the Book of Jubilees'
(a paper supplied to the author by A. Baumgarten), J. Kugel and L. Ravid conclude that the
calendar used in Jubilees cannot be interpreted in that way. - Wintermute, OTP, 2:37 n. z.