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In 4Q213b, a Dead Sea Scrolls copy of the Aramaic Levi Document, Jacob gives tithes to Levi as priest. Jubilees makes Levi himself part of the tithe, explaining his priesthood by counting him as the tenth son.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
4Q213b 1 4
Aramaic Levi c
Dead Sea Scrolls, Biblical Retellings
2 [… And those seven departed from me,] and I awoke from my sleep. Then 3 [I said, “This is a vision, and so I am amazed that I should have any vision at all.”] And I hid this too in my heart, and to no one 4 [did I reveal it. And we went to my father Isaac, and he too blessed me in this way. Then,] when Jacob my father was tithing 5 [everything that he had, according to his vow, I was first at the head of] the priesthood, and to me, of all his sons, he gave 6 [an offering to God. He clothed me in the garment of the priesthood and consecrated me, and I became a priest of] the eternal God […]
Jubilees 32:3
Pseudepigrapha, Hebrew Bible Expansions
1 That night he stayed at Bethel. Levi dreamed that he — he and his sons — had been appointed and made into the priesthood of the Most High God forever. When he awakened, he blessed the Lord. 2 Jacob got up early in the morning on the fourteenth day of this month and gave a tithe of everything which had come with him — from people to animals, from money to all utensils and clothing. He gave a tithe of everything. 3 At that time Rachel became pregnant with her son Benjamin. Jacob counted his sons from him. He went up the list, and it came down on Levi in the Lord’s share. His father put priestly clothes on him and ordained him. 4 On the fifteenth of this month he brought to the altar 14 young bulls from the cattle, 28 rams, 49 sheep, 7 kids, and 21 goats — as a burnt offering on the altar and as a pleasing offering for a pleasant aroma before God.
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Notes and References
“... The following night Jacob
stayed at Bethel, where “Levi dreamed that he—he and his sons—
had been appointed and made into the priesthood of the Most High
forever”. The next morning, on the 14th day of the seventh month,
Jacob “gave a tithe of everything which had come with him—from
people to animals, from money to all utensils and clothing. He gave
a tithe of everything” (32:2).
Thus, after Levi was anointed in his dream as a priest, Jacob
fulfilled his vow and gave him the tithe. Later, after Jacob actually
invested Levi in priestly garb (Jubilees 32:3), Levi started to sacrifice
and Jacob gave him a second tithe (32:9), [...] The fulfilment of the vow through Levi shows, as suggested by
VanderKam, that the author of Jubilees was using the tradition found
in ALD, directly or indirectly, and in addition to making Levi the
“the ancestor of the priest . . . he also had to document how his hero
Jacob had in fact tithed and thus fulfilled his earlier vow”.48 [...] See further in Jubilees 32:3, where Jacob counts his
sons and Levi is the tenth, see discussion with parallel sources in VanderKam, 2000,
551–53. ...”
Greenfield, Jonas C.
The Aramaic Levi Document: Edition, Translation, Commentary
(pp. 15-16) Brill, 2004
* 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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