nora
(Nora)
#1
Betsy Halpern-Amaru
maining days of Abraham's "festival of the Lord" (49:22b). Albeit far more
brief, the treatment of Massot structurally parallels that of Pesah in 49:1-6.
Again, legislation for future commemoration of the festival is comple
mented by a recollection that functions as a proof text; intertextual allusions
to biblical passages are creatively interwoven with intratextual references;
and identical strategies are employed to prompt the intratextual exegesis —
importation of the theme of joyous celebration, utilization of a motif and
subtle phrases that associate Massot with the patriarchal protofestival.
The prescription for future celebration of the festival combines bibli
cal commands — eating unleavened bread (Exod 12:15; 13:6; 23:15; 34:18; Lev
23:6; Num 28:17; Deut 16:3) and bringing daily sacrifices (Lev 23:8; Num
28:24) — with an implied obligation to rejoice ("during those seven joyous
days," sabu' mawa'ela fesseha) (Jub 49:22b) that has no counterpart in the
Torah.^28 The Hebrew equivalent phrase, nnatP '0' NS?3tP, appears in the
Chronicler's account of a fused Pesah/Massot celebration that is not only de
layed, but also extended an additional seven days (2 Chron 30:23), neither of
which is acceptable to the author of Jubilees. So, much as he had done with
Pesah Sheni in Num 9, he abstracts the phrase from the offending context
and employs it as an intratextual allusion to the requirement, expressed with
another "joy" phrase (TinBtt?3 CO^1 nSDtP in Ezra 6:22; 2 Chron 30:21), that
all Jacob's descendants joyously commemorate Abraham's "festival of the
Lord" (Jub 18:19).
Again the legislation is supported by a recollection, this time of the Is
raelites celebrating "this festival hastily" from the time they departed Egypt
until they crossed the sea (Jub 49:23). The phrase "this festival" also appears
in the account of the patriarchal celebration, indeed awkwardly so, for the
demonstrative pronoun has no preceding point of reference (18:18). That
awkwardness suggests a deliberate setup for the intratextual allusion that
now links Massot to the patriarchal festival whose celebration had begun on
the night of eating the pesah. That the celebration involves a travel motif is
another evocation of Abraham's festival, instituted "in accord with the seven
days during which he went and returned safely" (18:18). Like the patriarchal
journey, the Israelite one entails seven days of travel and deliverance (in
Abraham's case from the plotting of Mastema, in this instance from the
28. There is no Torah mandate for joyous celebration of Pesah or Massot. Indeed, its
absence is particularly glaring in Deut 16 where rejoicing is prescribed for the celebrations of
both Shabu'ot (Deut 16:11) and Succot (Deut 16:14-15), but not for celebration of the fused
Pesah/Massot festival. On the motif of joy and rejoicing in Jubilees, see B. Halpern-Amaru,
"Joy as Piety in the Book of Jubilees" JJS 66, no. 2 (2005): 185-205.
