Enoch and the Mosaic Torah- The Evidence of Jubilees

Eschatological Impulses in Jubilees

response has a public character as well, since God promises that all spirits

and angels will know them and the special relationship between Israel and

God. All "of them will be called children of the living God," who is here

called "their father" (v. 25). Moses' prayer leads God to promise that sin will

be followed by joyful "return."

God Orders the Writing Down of the Message (1:26-29)

The message constitutes a vision of the blessings of a new age and a new Je­

rusalem, both eschatological motifs. There appear to be two commands to

write down all these words; the first, in v. 26, contains an imperative form,

seemingly directed to Moses, to write down all the words God "will tell you

on this mountain." In a second line, God tells the angel of presence, "Dictate

to Moses" all this history, from the very beginning until its ending time,

when God will descend and actually live with his people (v. 27). This change,

a command to Moses in the first and an order to the angel to dictate in the

second, has long proved a crux interpretum; Davenport interpreted it as evi­

dence of redactional activity, arguing that the notion of a dictating angel

corresponds to a later redactional level.^24 VanderKam suspects that the dif­

ferent verbs in Ethiopic could reflect imprecisions of the Greek translator,

who might have failed to recognize the difference between qal and hiphil

forms of the verb.^25

Then the Lord will appear so that all can see and recognize him as "the

God of Israel, the father of all Jacob's children, and the king on Mt. Zion"

(v. 28). The covenant promise, originally associated with Moses as the cen­

tral figure, greatly expands here as it now extends to all Jacob's family of

twelve descendants, but finally to the claim that Jerusalem and Zion are holy

— even more surprising in the earlier worldview. This chapter concludes

(v. 29) when the angel of presence takes the tablets with all this information

inscribed on them and displays them. In a foretaste of things to come in this

book, the audience learns that these tablets will contain a complete picture

of all the "times" important for their history, including a look ahead to the

renewal of all creatures, when the Lord's temple will be created in Jerusalem.

Even the luminaries will be renewed, so that they can effect "healing, health,

24. Davenport, Eschatology, 15C This point was a key element for his reconstruction of
    the redactional history of this text.


25. VanderKam, Jubilees, 6, note to v. 27.