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Compare Jubilees 40:9 and 4Q504 1-2 recto iv 12

Pseudepigrapha, Hebrew Bible Expansions · Dead Sea Scrolls, Prayers, Hymns, and Liturgy

Summary

The Dead Sea Scrolls describe an ideal age of history with no adversary and no evil, only peace and blessing. Jubilees uses that same language for Joseph’s rule over Egypt, treating his leadership as a sample of a future, promised age.

Passages

Jubilees 40:9

Pseudepigrapha, Hebrew Bible Expansions

8 And Joseph ruled over all the land of Egypt, and all the princes of Pharaoh, and all his servants, and all who did the king's business loved him, for he walked in uprightness, for he was without pride and arrogance, and he showed no favoritism, and did not accept bribes, but he judged in uprightness all the people of the land. 9 And the land of Egypt was at peace before Pharaoh because of Joseph, for the Lord was with him, and gave him favor and mercy for all his generations before all those who knew him and those who heard concerning him, and Pharaoh's kingdom was well ordered, and there was no Satan and no evil person (in it). 10 And the king called Joseph's name Sephantiphans, and gave Joseph as wife the daughter of Potiphar, the daughter of the priest of Heliopolis, the chief cook.

170–125 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Jubilees

4Q504 1-2 recto iv 12

Dead Sea Scrolls, Prayers, Hymns, and Liturgy · Words of the Luminaries

2 your dwelling […] … a resting place 3 in Jerusalem, [the city that] you chose from all the earth, 4 so that your [name] would be there forever. For you loved 5 Israel more than all the peoples, and you chose the tribe of 6 Judah, and your covenant you established with David, so that he would be 7 like a shepherd, a leader over your people, and would sit on the throne of Israel before you 8 all the days. And all the nations saw your glory, 9 by which you showed yourself holy in the midst of your people Israel. And to your great 10 name they brought their offering, silver and gold and precious stones, 11 with all the treasure of their land, to honor your people and 12 Zion, your holy city, and your splendid house. And there was no adversary 13 or evil plague, but only peace and blessing … […] 14 And they ate and were satisfied and grew fat […]

160–100 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in 4Q504

References

... Pharaoh’s rule was just. There was no satan or any evil one. The last characteristic reminds one of those other passages in the book in which the absence of a satan is noted; all of them speak of ideal times. The occurrence in 46:2 parallels the present one because ‘There was no satan or any evil one throughout all of Joseph’s lifetime that he lived after his father Jacob...’ ... The expression recurs in eschatological contexts. One is in Jubilees 23:29, part of the depiction of the new age when people will be numerous and live lives of antediluvian length in peace and joy: ‘There will be neither a satan nor any evil one who will destroy. For their entire lifetimes will be times of blessing and healing.’ The final occurrence is in the last chapter where the angel predicts that Israel will become pure of evil and live confidently in the land: ‘They will no longer have any satan or any evil one. The land will be pure from that time until eternity’ (50:5). The implication is that the way in which Joseph governed the country produced conditions matching those anticipated in eschatological times. Berger maintains that the writer presents Joseph’s rule as an ideal time of deliverance and that it has a messianic character. ...

James C. VanderKam, Jubilees 1: A Commentary on the Book of Jubilees Chapters 1–21 (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2018), 1028.

... The same may also be inferred from the negative which precedes it at 4Q504 1–2 iv 12: ‘and there is no satan or evil plague’ (ואין סטן ופגע רע). Jubilees offers a similar picture: the apocalyptic passage in chapter 23 anticipates that in the end of days ‘there will be neither satan nor any evil who (or better: which) will destroy’ (23:29). Here, the term saṭan generically denotes someone – anyone – who destroys by cutting short the life of human beings. Less clear is Jubilees 10:11: the angels of the presence are made to say that, ‘[a]ll the evil ones (that is, the spirits from the giants) who were more savage we tied up in the place of judgment, while we left a tenth of them to exercise power on the earth before the satan.’ Here, ‘the satan’ refers to the chief of the evil spirits who has just previously been mentioned by name as ‘Mastema’; the expression, then, describes a function associated with Mastema rather than being a proper name in itself. ...

Loren T. Stuckenbruck, The Myth of Rebellious Angels: Studies in Second Temple Judaism and New Testament Texts (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2014), 94.

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

Fragments 1-2 recto iv

4Q50457 chapters

Compare Jubilees 40:9 and 4Q504 1-2 recto iv 12

Summary

Passages

Jubilees 40:9

4Q504 1-2 recto iv 12

References

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