Texts in Conversation
Isaiah mocks the skilled craftsman who shapes a lifeless idol propped up so it will not topple. Jubilees uses the same language to Abram, who uses that skill to build a plough that feeds the land.
Share:
2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Isaiah 40:20
Hebrew Bible
19 A craftsman casts an idol; a metal smith overlays it with gold and forges silver chains for it. 20 To make a contribution one selects wood that will not rot; he then seeks a skilled craftsman to make an idol that will not fall over. 21 Do you not know? Do you not hear? Has it not been told to you since the very beginning? Have you not understood from the time the earth’s foundations were made?
Jubilees 11:23
Pseudepigrapha
22 All who were planting seed came to him in this year, and he kept going with them until the seedtime came to an end. They planted their land and that year brought in enough food. So they ate and were filled. 23 In the first year of the fifth week [1891] Abram taught the people who made equipment for bulls — the skillful woodworkers — and they made an implement above the ground, opposite the plow beam, so that one could place seed on it. The seed would then drop down from it onto the end of the plow and be hidden in the ground; and they would no longer be afraid of the ravens. 24 They made vessels like this above the ground on every plow beam. They planted seed, and all the land did as Abram told them. So they were no longer afraid of the birds.
Search:
Notes and References
... And surely the citation of the Deutero-Isaianic idol polemic ... is not far from the surface when Jubilees 11:23 describes Abram teaching 'the skillful wood-workers' of Chaldea the salvific technology of the seed-plow (compare the work of the חרש חכם 'skillful woodworker' lampooned in Isaiah 40:19; compare 41:7) ...
Teeter, D. Andrew
On 'Exegetical Function' in Rewritten Scripture: Inner-Biblical Exegesis and the Abram/Ravens Narrative in Jubilees
(p. 396) Cambridge University Press, 2013
* 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.
Your Feedback:
Leave a Comment
Anonymous comments are welcome. All comments are subject to moderation.