Texts in conversation

Compare Jubilees 32:3 and 4Q213b 1 4

Pseudepigrapha, Hebrew Bible Expansions · Dead Sea Scrolls, Biblical Retellings

Summary

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.

Passages

Jubilees 32:3

Pseudepigrapha, Hebrew Bible Expansions

1 And he stayed that night at Bethel, and Levi dreamed that they had ordained and made him the priest of the Most High God, him and his sons forever; and he awoke from his sleep and blessed the Lord. 2 And Jacob rose early in the morning, on the fourteenth of this month, and he gave a tithe of all that came with him, both of men and cattle, both of gold and every container and item of clothing, indeed, he gave tithes of all. 3 And in those days Rachel became pregnant with her son Benjamin. And Jacob counted his sons from him upwards and Levi fell to the portion of the Lord, and his father clothed him in the priestly robes and filled his hands. 4 And on the fifteenth of this month, he brought to the altar fourteen oxen from among the cattle, and twenty-eight rams, and forty-nine sheep, and seven lambs, and twenty-one young goats as a burnt-offering on the altar of sacrifice, well pleasing for a pleasing aroma before God.

170–125 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Jubilees

4Q213b 1 4

Dead Sea Scrolls, Biblical Retellings · Aramaic Levi c

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 […]

160–60 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in 4Q213b

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”. [...] 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. ...”

Jonas C. Greenfield, Michael E. Stone, and Esther Eshel, eds., The Aramaic Levi Document: Edition, Translation, Commentary, SVTP 19 (Leiden: Brill, 2004), 15–16.

References are not endorsements of their contents. Read each reference in full to understand its author's intentions in using these texts.

Fragment 1

Compare Jubilees 32:3 and 4Q213b 1 4

Summary

Passages

Jubilees 32:3

4Q213b 1 4

References

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