Texts in Conversation
Ezekiel 38 calls Israel the “navel of the earth,” an image echoed in 1 Enoch and Jubilees to describe Israel as the center of the world. In Jubilees, this area is given to Shem in the divine division of land, while in 1 Enoch it is a cosmic mountain.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Ezekiel 38:12
Hebrew Bible
11 You will say, “I will invade a land of unwalled towns; I will advance against those living quietly in security—all of them living without walls and barred gates— 12 to loot and plunder, to attack the inhabited ruins and the people gathered from the nations, who are acquiring cattle and goods, who live at the navel of the earth.” 13 Sheba and Dedan and the traders of Tarshish with all its young warriors will say to you, “Have you come to loot? Have you assembled your armies to plunder, to carry away silver and gold, to take away cattle and goods, to haul away a great amount of spoils?”’
Date: 600–501 BCE (based on scholarly estimates)
1 Enoch 26:1
Pseudepigrapha, Apocalypses
1 And I went from there to the middle of the earth, and I saw a blessed place where trees with branches were abiding and blooming [from a dismembered tree]. 2 And there I saw a holy mountain, and beneath the mountain to the east there was a stream that flowed towards the south. 3 And I saw towards the east another mountain higher than this, and between them a deep and narrow ravine: in it also a stream ran beneath the mountain.
Date: 300 BCE – 100 CE (based on scholarly estimates)
Jubilees 8:12
Pseudepigrapha, Hebrew Bible Expansions
11 And he called his sons, and they drew near to him, they and their children, and he divided the earth into the lots, which his three sons were to take in possession, and they reached forth their hands, and took the writing out of the bosom of Noah, their father. 12 And there came forth on the writing as Shem's lot the middle of the earth which he should take as an inheritance for himself and for his sons for the generations of eternity, from the middle of the mountain range of Rafa, from the mouth of the water from the river Tina, and his portion goes towards the west through the midst of this river, and it extends till it reaches the water of the abysses, out of which this river goes forth and pours its waters into the sea Me'at, and this river flows into the great sea. And all that is towards the north is Japheth's, and all that is towards the south belongs to Shem.
Date: 170–125 BCE (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
"... In the redivision, Shem’s lot - he is the good son - was assigned the center of the earth: this matches Ezekiel’s notion of the land of Israel as the Earth's “navel” (Ezekiel 38:12), compare 1 Enoch 26:1 ..."
James L. Kugel, A Walk through Jubilees: Studies in the Book of Jubilees and the World of Its Creation (Leiden: Brill, 2012), 78.
* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.
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Can these be referenced to the sign of Jonah three days in the belly of the whale and Jesus' three days in the heart of the earth?
Can these be referenced to the sign of Jonah three days in the belly of the whale and Jesus' three days in the heart of the earth?