The Festivals of Pesah and Massot in the Book of Jubileesas well") (Jub 49:2) executes the prediction in Exod 11:5; and the saving of the
Israelites ("the plague did not come on them to destroy... from cattle to man
kind to dogs")^14 (Jub 49:4) occurs much as foretold in Exod 11:7 and 12:13.
The most creative exegesis is the treatment of Exod 12:23, which,m con
trast to the other forecasts of the plague in Exodus, introduces a "Destroyer"
as its chief executor. The unusual personification all but invites the insertion
of a motif involving Mastema, provocateur of the testing of Abraham.^15
However, since Mastema himself had been bound and locked up from the
fourteenth onward (Jub 48:15), "the forces of Mastema" replace "the De
stroyer" and, acting strictly in accordance with God's directives (49:2-4), be
come "the Lord's forces" (49:4). The transformations — from "the Destroyer"
to "the forces of Mastema" to "the Lord's forces" — not only resolve the ten
sion between Exod 12:23 and passages that present God as the sole executor of
the plague (Exod 11:4; 12:12-13,^2 7>^2 S>)> but also associate the saving of the Isra
elites from Mastema's forces with the rescue of Isaac in the Jubilees Akedah
narrative.^16
An even closer connection between Abraham's "festival of the Lord"
(Jub 18:18) and the celebration of the pesah on the night of the fifteenth is ev
ident in the description of the night of celebratory eating as "the beginning
of the festival and the beginning of joy" (49:2). Without biblical parallel, the
Jubilees-created phrasing is artfully constructed. The direct article before
"festival" suggests that the Israelites are celebrating a previously established
festival on the night when they are eating the Pesah, and the repeated phrase,
"beginning of," implies that the festival and its joy extend beyond a single
day. Clearly, the intent is to imply that the Israelites are commemorating the
beginning of the seven-day patriarchal festival ordained for Jacob's descen
dants "to celebrate... joyfully for seven days" (18:19). Undated and without
rituals in its patriarchal context, the first night of Abraham's "festival of the
Lord" now acquires both a date — the night of the fifteenth in the first
month — and rituals — "eating the paschal meat, drinking the wine, glori
fying, blessing and praising the Lord God of their fathers" (49:6).
- The inclusion of "the dogs" is an adaptation of "not a dog shall snarl" (Exod 11:7).
- In contrast, the introduction of Mastema into the Akedah narrative requires the
addition of a Job-like preface. See J. van Ruiten, "Abraham, Job and the Book of Jubilees: The
Intertextual Relationship of Genesis 22:1-19, J°b 1:1-2:13 and Jubilees 17:15-18:19," in The Sac
rifice of Isaac: The Aqedah (Genesis 22) and Its Interpretations, ed. E. Noort and E. Tigchelaar
(Leiden: Brill, 2002), 58-85 (here 71-83). - In contrast to M. Segal ("The Composition of Jubilees," in this volume), I see
exegetical harmonization at work in Jub 49:4.