nora
(Nora)
#1
Betsy Halpern-Amaru
the time of the eating, Jubilees combines "at night" (Deut 16:1) with "in the
evening at sunset" (Deut 16:6). That the combination involves the beginning
of a new calendar date is developed from "the time of day when you de
parted from Egypt" (Deut 16:6). The phrase is not included in the pastiche,
for it is troublesome in its own right. The Exodus narrative has the tenth
plague striking the Egyptians "in the middle of night," Pharaoh rising "in
the night," summoning Moses and Aaron "in the night" and pressing the Is
raelites to immediately leave, by implication, that same night (Exod 12:29-
32). However, according to Num 33:3, the Israelites depart in clear sight of
the Egyptians "on the fifteenth day of the first month... on the morrow of
the paschal offering," a time frame also implied in Moses' directive that the
Israelites not leave their homes until the morning after the paschal offering
(Exod 12:22). Harmonizing the two possibilities, Jubilees combines the ex
plicit "at night" of Deut 16:1 with the equally explicit date in Num 33:3 to in
dicate that the eating of the pesah, like the departure from Egypt, took place
on the fifteenth.
Presented as a proof case for the exegetical argument for the fifteenth,
the narrative that immediately follows recollects the Israelites eating the
paschal offering as the tenth plague strikes the houses of the Egyptians (Jub
49:2-6). Again there is no biblical parallel for what Moses is directed to re
call. Exodus offers multiple forecasts of the plague (11:4-7; 12:12-13,23,27),^11
a brief report of its execution (12:29),^12 but no account of the Israelites eat
ing the pesah.^13 Num 33:3 presents a description of the Egyptians burying
their dead, but the point of contrast is with the Israelite departure from
Egypt, not their celebration of the pesah. Responding to that lacuna, Jubi
lees creates a portrait of the celebration on the night of the fifteenth that
both fills the lacuna in Exodus and connects the Egypt Pesah to its patriar
chal predecessor.
Integrating facets of the multiple forecasts in Exod 11-12, the portrait
demonstrates that what had been foretold in fact came to pass. The sharp con
trast between the activities of the Egyptians and Israelites on the night of the
fifteenth (Jub 49:5-6) fulfills the forecast in Exod 11:7; the timing ("on this
night"); the nature of the strike on the Egyptians ("from the pharaoh's first
born to the first-born of the captive slave-girl at the millstone and to the cattle
11. Exod 11:4-7 appears in Moses' predictions to Pharaoh's court; 12:12-13 in God's pre
dictions to Moses and Aaron; 12:23,^27 >n the directives Moses gives to the elders.
12. The report presents a variant of the forecast in Exod 11:5.
13. The narrator simply indicates that "the Israelites went and did so; just as the Lord
had commanded Moses and Aaron, so they did" (Exod 12:28).
