Enoch and the Mosaic Torah- The Evidence of Jubilees

The Chronologies of the Apocalypse of Weeks and the Book of Jubilees

trajectory, which likewise extends to the new creation, focuses more particu­
larly on the eschatological temple and its cultus, using the prototypical priest
Enoch and his movements as the anchor point and terminus a quo for the cor­
respondence between Urzeit and Endzeit on this trajectory.
In between these two overarching trajectories is the much smaller tra­
jectory of Israel in the Promised Land, which comes at the end of the book,
forming a kind of bookend with the opening revelation to Moses in the first
chapter (note the similar reference to periodization in terms of sabbaths and
jubilees in both cases). Thus, Jub 50:2-5 states:

(2) On Mt. Sinai I told you about the sabbaths of the land and the years

of jubilees in the sabbaths of the years, but its year we have not told you

until the time when you enter the land which you will possess. (3) The

land will observe its sabbaths when they live on it, and they are to know

the year of the jubilee. (4) For this reason I have arranged for you the

weeks of years and the jubilees — 49 jubilees from the time of Adam un­

til today, and one week and two years. It is still 40 years off (for learning

the Lord's commandments) until the time when he leads (them) across

to the land of Canaan, after they have crossed the Jordan to the west of it.

(5) The jubilees will pass by until Israel is pure of every sexual evil, im­

purity, contamination, sin, and error. Then they will live confidently in

the entire land. They will no longer have any satan or any evil person.

The land will be pure from that time until eternity.

In other words, the entrance into the land is predicted to take place forty
years from the revelation at Sinai (2410 A.M.), at the culmination of the jubi­
lee of jubilees (2450 A.M.).^17 This date is significant because the all-
important synchronization between heavenly and earthly cultus, if it is to
happen at all, must commence upon initial entrance into the land; other­
wise, the people will again err with respect to the observance of jubilees and
the sabbaths of the land.

17. Cf. VanderKam, "End of the Matter?" 281, referring to Jub 50:2-3: "The author
    names two subjects — the Sabbaths of the land and the years of jubilee — both of which de­
    rive from Leviticus 25 (understood to belong to the Jubilean setting of Moses' first forty-day
    sojourn atop Sinai). The legislation in Leviticus 25 is intended for the time when Israel will
    live in the land (v. 2), and this idea is expressed at the end of Jub 50:2. The phrase 'Sabbath of
    the land' occurs in Lev 25:6 (cf. w. 4-5), and the year of jubilee (for the phrase see, e.g., Lev
    25:28) is treated in w. 8-17, while most of the remainder of the chapter deals with legal mat­
    ters related to it."