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Joseph saves Egypt and feeds foreign lands during a famine by opening the storehouses. Jubilees gives young Abram the same role in Chaldea, where he rescues the seed from Mastema’s ravens so the fields finally produce enough food.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Genesis 41:56
Hebrew Bible
55 When all the land of Egypt experienced the famine, the people cried out to Pharaoh for food. Pharaoh said to all the people of Egypt, “Go to Joseph and do whatever he tells you.” 56 While the famine was over all the earth, Joseph opened the storehouses and sold grain to the Egyptians. The famine was severe throughout the land of Egypt. 57 People from every country came to Joseph in Egypt to buy grain because the famine was severe throughout the earth.
Jubilees 11:22
Pseudepigrapha
21 All who were with him in any of the fields would see him shouting: then all of the ravens returned to their place. His reputation grew large throughout the entire land of the Chaldeans. 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.
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Notes and References
... he is described as saving the populace of Chaldea from starvation by turning away flocks of crows sent by Mastema at sowing time to eat all the seed before it had taken root (Jubilees 11:11-13, 18-24). Here, Abraham takes on some of the attributes of Joseph, an Israelite who was likewise able to provide the inhabitants of a foreign land with sufficient food (Genesis 37:56-57). This story also echoes the first account in Genesis of the sealing of the covenant, in which Abraham prevents birds of prey from landing on the animal carcasses being offered (Genesis 15:11), so that his actions on one occasion are assumed to be capable of repeating at another ...
Docherty, Susan
"Abraham in Rewritten Scripture" in Adams, Sean A.; Domoney-Lyttle, Zanne (ed.) Abraham in Jewish and Early Christian Literature
(p. 65) T&T Clark, 2019
* 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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