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Jubilees

About this book

The Departure of Hagar and Ishmael

Chapter 17

1 And in the first year of the fifth week Isaac was weaned in this jubilee, [1989] and Abraham made a great banquet in the third month, on the day his son Isaac was weaned. 2 And Ishmael, the son of Hagar, the Egyptian, was in the presence of Abraham, his father, in his place, and Abraham rejoiced and blessed God because he had seen his sons and had not died childless. 3 And he remembered the words which He had spoken to him on the day on which Lot had separated from him, and he rejoiced because the Lord had given him descendants upon the earth to inherit the earth, and he wholeheartedly blessed the Creator of all things. 4 And Sarah saw Ishmael playing and dancing,⁠ and Abraham rejoicing with great joy, and she became jealous of Ishmael and said to Abraham, 'Send away this enslaved woman and her son; for the son of this enslaved woman will not be heir with my son, Isaac.' 5 And this deeply distressed Abraham, because of his female servant and because of his son, that he should drive them from him. 6 And God said to Abraham 'Do not be distressed, because of the child and because of the enslaved woman; in all that Sarah has said to you, listen to her words and do (them); for in Isaac your name and line of descendants shall continue. 7 But as for the son of this enslaved woman I will make him a great nation, because he is of your descendants.' 8 And Abraham rose up early in the morning, and took bread and a waterskin of water, and placed them on the shoulders of Hagar and the child, and sent her away. 9 And she departed and wandered in the wilderness of Beersheba, and the water in the waterskin ran out, and the child became thirsty, and was not able to go on, and fell down. 10 And his mother took him and placed him under an olive tree, and went and sat down opposite him, at the distance of a bowshot; for she said, 'May I not see the death of my child,' and as she sat she wept. 11 And an angel of God, one of the holy ones, said to her, 'Why do you weep, Hagar? Get up, take the child, and hold him in your hand; for God has heard your voice, and has seen the child.' 12 And she opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water, and she went and filled her waterskin with water, and she gave her child water to drink, and she got up and went toward the wilderness of Paran. 13 And the child grew and became an archer, and God was with him, and his mother found him a wife from among the daughters of Egypt. 14 And she bore him a son, and he named him Nebaioth; for she said, 'The Lord was near to me when I called upon him.'

Mastema Challenges Abraham’s Faithfulness

15 And in the seventh week, in the first year of it, [2003] in the first month in this jubilee, on the twelfth of this month, there were voices in heaven regarding Abraham, that he was faithful in all that He told him,⁠ and that he loved the Lord, and that in every affliction he was faithful. 16 And the prince Mastema came and said before God,⁠ 'Look, Abraham loves Isaac his son, and he delights in him above all things else; tell him to offer him as a burnt-offering on the altar, and You will see if he will do this command, and You will know if he is faithful in everything in which You test him.⁠ 17 And the Lord knew that Abraham was faithful in all his afflictions;⁠ for He had tested him through his country and with famine,⁠ and had tested him with the wealth of kings, and had tested him again through his wife, when she was torn (from him), and with circumcision; and had tested him through Ishmael and Hagar, his female servant, when he sent them away. 18 And in everything in which He had tested him, he was found faithful, and his soul was not impatient, and he was not slow to act; for he was faithful and a lover of the Lord.

Texts in conversation

Compare Genesis 22:2 and Jubilees 17:16

Hebrew Bible · Pseudepigrapha, Hebrew Bible Expansions

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Summary

Jubilees rewrites the story of Abraham sacrificing Isaac in Genesis 22 and changes the instigator from God to the adversarial figure Mastema. This was likely done to avoid the reading that God arbitrarily and cruelly asks Abraham to sacrifice Isaac.

Passages

Genesis 22:2

Hebrew Bible
1 Some time after these things God tested Abraham. He said to him, “Abraham!” “Here I am!” Abraham replied. 2 God said, “Take your son—your only son, whom you love, Isaac—and go to the land of Moriah! Offer him up there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains which I will indicate to you.” 3 Early in the morning Abraham got up and saddled his donkey. He took two of his young servants with him, along with his son Isaac. When he had cut the wood for the burnt offering, he started out for the place God had spoken to him about. 4 On the third day Abraham caught sight of the place in the distance.
750–400 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Genesis

Jubilees 17:16

Pseudepigrapha, Hebrew Bible Expansions
15 And in the seventh week, in the first year of it, [2003] in the first month in this jubilee, on the twelfth of this month, there were voices in heaven regarding Abraham, that he was faithful in all that He told him, and that he loved the Lord, and that in every affliction he was faithful. 16 And the prince Mastema came and said before God, 'Look, Abraham loves Isaac his son, and he delights in him above all things else; tell him to offer him as a burnt-offering on the altar, and You will see if he will do this command, and You will know if he is faithful in everything in which You test him. 17 And the Lord knew that Abraham was faithful in all his afflictions; for He had tested him through his country and with famine, and had tested him with the wealth of kings, and had tested him again through his wife, when she was torn (from him), and with circumcision; and had tested him through Ishmael and Hagar, his female servant, when he sent them away.
170–125 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Jubilees

References

"... The solution to this problem [in James 1:13] appears immediately if one examines the account of Abraham in Jubilees. First, in Jubilees 17:15-18, it is not God who initiates the test of Abraham, but 'Prince Mastema' who challenges God. Thus, while Jubilees does not explain why God went along with the test, the whole testing situation is recast in a form similar to that of Job. Secondly, Abraham is presented as a person who has been faithful through a series of tests ..."
Peter H. Davids, “The Pseudepigrapha in the Catholic Epistles,” in The Pseudepigrapha and Early Biblical Interpretation, ed. James H. Charlesworth and Craig A. Evans, JSPSup 14 (Sheffield: JSOT, 1993), 229.
"... a more modest version of this theory is that the changing nature of God in Judaism may have prompted the transference to other heavenly beings of certain actions and attributes now deemed unbecoming of the deity. Efraim Urbach notes several examples in which angels are employed to avoid anthropomorphism in describing God. In addition, angels replace God in various retellings of biblical stories: Satan replaces God in the Chronicler’s retelling of the story of David’s census (1 Chronicles 21:1; compare 2 Samuel 24:1); Mastema replaces God in the account of the binding of Isaac (Jubilees 17:15–18:19; compare Genesis 22) and again in the story of God’s attempt to kill Moses (Jubilees 48:2; compare Exodus 4:24) ..."
Deane Galbraith, “The Origin of Archangels: Ideological Mystification of Nobility,” in Class Struggle in the New Testament, ed. Robert J. Myles (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books/Fortress Academic, 2019), 209–240.

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

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Genesis 22:2 and Jubilees 17:16

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