Jonathan Ben-Dov
I. The Septenary Principle and the Count of Weeks
In the book of Jubilees, the central apparatus for structuring time is its divi
sion into seven-based units. Such structuring was necessary to impose order
on the endless, arbitrary stretches of time experienced by mankind. Large-
scale septenary (i.e., seven-based) units are the shemitah (week of years) and
the jubilee (week of shemitot), applied throughout Jubilees to outline the
world's history. In Jubilees this concept dictated that each numerical figure is
analyzed using septenary units. Thus, for example, in the formulaic account
of the life of Noah (10:15-16), and in a more pronounced way at the death of
Abraham (23:8). This latter verse serves as a trigger for the so-called apoca
lypse of chap. 23: "He had lived for three jubilees and four weeks of years —
175 years.. .. For the times of the ancients were 19 jubilees.... After the flood
they started to decrease from 19 jubilees.... All the generations that will
come into being from now until the great day of judgment will grow old
quickly — before they complete two jubilees."^6 Note that while the introduc
tory verses count the lifetimes of various personalities as nineteen jubilees,
or three jubilees plus four weeks, etc., numbers are given later in the apoca
lypse more naturally as normal decimal figures (23:15, 27).^7 For the present
purposes we note that, as 23:15 shows, it was by no means necessary to count
the years by jubilees, which could in fact be quite awkward. Such a practice
was required only by an author extraordinarily committed to the septenary
plan.
The importance of the septenary division of time is attested in Jub
4:18, where Enoch is accredited with transmitting ancient teachings: "He tes
tified to mankind in the generations of the earth: the weeks of the jubilees he
related,^8 and made known the days of the years; the months he arranged,
and related the sabbaths of the years" (emphasis mine). Numerous authors
- Translations of Jubilees follow J. C. VanderKam, The Book of Jubilees, CSCO 510
(Louvain: Peeters, 1989). - This difference may suggest that the apocalypse of Jub 23 was taken from an inde
pendent source and worked into the framework of Jubilees using an editorial remark. A sim
ilar conclusion was reached by C. Berner in his contribution to the present conference. On
sources and redaction in Jubilees see M. Segal, The Book of Jubilees: Rewritten Bible, Redac
tion, Ideology, and Theology, JSJSup 117 (Leiden: Brill, 2007); for a different analysis of chap.
23, see C. Werman, "The Book of Jubilees and the Qumran Scrolls," Meghillot 2 (2004): 37-55
(here 39-48). - This phrase is possibly attested in liQJubilees frg. 4: F. Garcia-Martinez et al., eds.,
Qumran Cave 11 II. 11Q2-18, 11Q20-31, DJD 23 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1998), 213.