Jubilees and Enochic JudaismThe Shemikhazah Exemplar
The Shemikhazah exemplar used the account of the sin of Shemikhazah and
the Watchers, their human wives and offspring, to address the issue of ethnic
impurity. As Halpern-Amaru^14 has demonstrated so effectively, the writer of
Jubilees "fenced" the Torah narrative in order to make clear that only the
pure may stand within the boundary of the elect. There is here an absolute
distinction between the pure and the defiled. The only candidates for salva
tion are those who find themselves much in the same situation as Enoch and
Noah — a chosen people (= pure Israelites) living in a violent and defiled
world where all boundaries are being violated around them. In the books of
Enoch there is no salvation possible for the women who intermarried with
the Watchers, for the Watchers, nor for their offspring. Humans who partici
pated in sexual promiscuity, violence, eating of blood, and other deceptions
of the Watchers had no way back. This point is stressed as Enoch is asked to
petition on behalf of the Watchers and his mission is cut off (l En 12-16).
Here the role of the priest as mediator of any restoration is stressed and
linked directly to the proper function of the angels (15:2; 30:18). As the priests
are to the people of Israel, so those within the boundary of the elect must be
to those within the horizon of the author's parenesis.
Jubilees identified the demons as the offspring of the Watchers who
sinned (Jub 10:5). Noah and his family come through the flood to face a
world cleansed and purified. They have the option of a new beginning (Jub
5:12; cf. 1 En 10:20-11:2). They are the exemplar of a restored Eden, a planta
tion of righteousness (Jub 7:34-38; 16:26; 36:1-17; cf. 1 En 10:16; 84:6; 93:2, 5),
as are the target audience of Jubilees (Jub 1:15; 5:17-19; 15:27; cf. 1 En 93:9-10).
Those who violated the boundary of this plantation replicated the violation
that occurred before the flood and so are "uprooted" and place themselves
beyond the horizon of possible forgiveness (Jub 2:26-28; 5:3-11; 6:12; 10:30;
15:14; 15:34; 16:9; 16:16,25; 21:22; 22:20; 24:29-33; 26:9-11; 30:7-11; 31:17,20; 33:18-
20; 35:14). The only people outside the boundary who had the option to re
turn were those Israelites who lived as exiles and who searched for the Lord
"with all their minds and with all their souls" (1:15; cf. 4:23-28).
In integrating the Shemikhazah exemplar with the Torah narrative, the
writer of Jubilees drew upon wider conceptions found in the Tanakh, and in
so doing constructed a figure to lead the demons. This figure is a composite.
- B. Halpern-Amaru, The Empowerment of Women in the Book of jubilees (Leiden:
Brill, 1999).