Enoch and the Mosaic Torah- The Evidence of Jubilees

The Festivals of Pesah and Massot in the Book of Jubilees

threat of the Egyptians at the Reed Sea).^29 Moreover, according to the bibli­
cal description of the route taken by the Israelites, they also "went and re­
turned safely" — from Egypt to "the edge of the wilderness" (Exod 13:20),
back toward the sea (14:2), and, after crossing the sea, safely back to the wil­
derness (i5:22).^30

Lastly, the Israelite celebration adds another ritual to the protofestival
— the eating of unleavened bread (instead of the customary festive loaves)
— because the Israelites celebrated the ancient festival "hastily" from the
time they left Egypt until they crossed the sea "into the wilderness of Sur,"
where they "completed it on the seashore" (Jub 49:23). The explanation is a
creative reworking of a motif associated with both Pesah and Massot. Haste
is the reason given for the unleavened bread in Exod 12:39 and Deut 16:3 (cf.
Exod 12:3), but in those passages it relates to a hasty departure, not to a hur­
ried celebration. The notion of a hasty celebration appears only in the con­
text of Pesah (Exod 12:11), and, as we have seen, it is an aspect that Jubilees
excludes from both the recollection of the Egypt celebration and the Pesah
statute. Retaining the motif in association with Massot, but rearranging it to
the context of a centuries-later celebration of the patriarchal festival, the au­
thor of Jubilees sustains his portrayal of a people "ready to leave the Egyp­
tian yoke and evil slavery" (Jub 49:6), avoids the indignities of the harried
flight from Egypt described in Exod i2:3i-39,^31 and affirms the image of a
bold, defiant Israelite departure depicted in Num 33:3 (cf. Exod 14:8).

Conclusion

The Jubilees treatment of Pesah. and Massot is foremost an interpretive re­
working of Exod 12-13. Its author designs an ingenious compositional struc-

29. Since the author uses the Mastema motif in his recollection of the Egypt Pesah, he
    does not repeat it with Massot. However, in his account of the exodus, Mastema does appear
    as the instigator of the Egyptian pursuit (Jub 48:12, 15-17).


30. The biblical account gives no date for the crossing of the sea. The Jubilees notion
    that it was the twenty-second of the first month (the seventh day of Massot) does have a par­
    allel in rabbinic tradition. The calculation is based on the assumption that Pharaoh began
    pursuing the Israelites three days after their departure on the fifteenth (Exod 3:18; 5:3). In the
    course of those three days the Israelites arrived at the edge of the desert (Exod 13:20), but
    then retraced their steps (a second three-day journey) back to the sea (Exod 14:2), which
    they crossed on the twenty-second (b. Megillah 31a; Rashi on Exod 14:5).


31. The rejection of a hurried departure may also reflect the influence of Isa 52:12.