Exegetical Notes on 4Q225 'Pseudo-Jubilees'.pdf

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Exegetical Notes on 4Q225 "Pseudo-Jubilees"Author(s): James KugelSource: Dead Sea Discoveries, Vol. 13, No. 1 (2006), pp. 73-98Published by: BRILLStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4193387.

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2/27

EXEGETICAL

NOTES

ON

4Q225 "PSEUDO-JUBILEES"

JAMES KUGEL

Bar Ilan

University

The

texts 4Q225-227 "Pseudo-Jubilees"were published by James

VanderKamand J. T. Milik.'These texts

were

classified as "Pseudo-

Jubilees"because, while not part

of the book of Jubilees itself, they

share certain characteristicswith that book, notably the reference to

Satan

as

Mastemah,

hat

is,

"the

angel2

of

loathing"(i rz:?sl

ms

or

55mn :r)2 and the dating of events

with

reference

to

the

number

of

jubilees. One part of 4Q225 deals with the famous

story

of

Abraham's

offering up

of his

son

Isaac

as

a

sacrifice

(Genesis 22),

and

this

sec-

tion has

already

been

the subject of several studies.4Despite

this

I

H. Attridge et al., Qumran Cave

4.

VIII Parabiblical Texts

Part I

(DJD XIII;

Oxford:Clarendon,1994) 141-75.

2

Some

translators ave rendered

7

here

as

"prince,"

but

clearly

the

word means

"angel,"

as

in,

for

example, Dan. 10:13, 20-21,

12:1. This

usage

is

generally under-

stood as a developmentof late biblical Hebrew,but it may have earlierroots:Ps. 82:7

seems to refer

to

shooting stars (understood o be falling angels)

as

01-10.

3

As

the editors

and

others

have observed,4Q225

offers

an etymology of the name

"Mastemah"which Jubilees itself does not): ntc Do'II 0;il'

j

ts

ncd[oJ

n -lo

Kin

pnr:

tYlOrn.

This sentence is reminiscentof numerousrabbinictexts that associate

the name "Satan" with

the

verb pl"::,

for

example, the early post-biblical liturgical

poem

nlrm unmnm

ith its line,

ir'bsI=

ttI

m

minrr,Seal up Satan's mouthand

let him not

incite

against

us"

(cf.

Zech.

3:2).

The

verbs

DM

and

I=

are rathersimi-

lar in

biblical Hebrew, though the former

is

rarer and is

not

found in

late

biblical

Hebrew. Does Jubilees' use of the name "Mastemah" epresenta suggestion that the

name

7W

is derived from it? Such a possibility is to be weighed in the light of the

well known phenomenon f the interchange etween inal

mem

and nun in Hebrewand

Aramaicsources from the Second Temple period-including the QumranScrolls. See

E. Qimron,The Hebrewof the Dead Sea Scrolls HSS 29 (Atlanta:Scholars, 1986) 27.

4 See,

inter

alia,

M.

Kister, "Observations

n

Aspects

of

Exegesis, Tradition,and

Theology in Midrash, Pseudepigrapha,and Other Jewish Writings," Tracing the

Threads: Studies in the Vitality of Jewish Pseudepigrapha (ed. J. Reeves; Atlanta:

ScholarsPress, 1994); G. Vermes,"New Light on the Sacrificeof Isaac from 4Q225,"

JJS 47

(1996) 140-46; J. VanderKam, The Aqedah,

Jubilees,

and PseudoJubilees,"

The Quest for Context and Meaning: Studies in Biblical Intertextuality in Honor

of James A. Sanders (eds C. Evans and S. Talmon; Leiden: Brill, 1997) 241-61;

J. Fitzmyer,"The Sacrificeof Isaac in QumranLiterature," iblica 83 (2002) 211-29;

?

Koninklijke

Brill

NV, Leiden, 2006 Dead Sea Discoveries 13, 1

Also availableonline

-

www.brill.nl

http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsphttp://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp


3/27

74

JAMES KUGEL

attention,thereremain a numberof issues that may deserve further

comment.In

the following

I

would

like to addressa cluster of issues

related to 4Q225

and

the biblical exegesis underlying t.

The section dealing with

the offeringof Isaac begins

in fragment

2, column

i

and

continues

n

fragment2,

column

ii. I will

reproduce

the

text

along

with the

proposedreadings

of

the two editors and their

translation:

column

i

nr4vj6-i -ic ttivi

pnco

ino

nit

itnpn

ctri:Kt4

.9

:w 10t] nvi

pnics:

c'-f-Im nri 'on

mrlj

"tgk

j

.10

[hss

riz'Mt

pron

n

tAnz: np

h:Ktkt

.11

otn,1nJ

&llTi r

r

5

"4

TrJM dzrim: nMr]

.12

[n"ninm]

b. ni-itAn

In

[INnl

Ol]p'lnnt

[-imiR

ia

.13

r*

[On-1]tt

4051

b

.14

column

ii

[nnl5l1=

pnsv

5D

C:s,X. nt]t^[

Nl

VA

,',r

[ ?l.

[;T WSte ,

sx

i-n

Mn

'Mtl

0n:tMnt

%

pr1V'

.2

[mnwiK Ol*x

in

p

'o:'

o rri=x

nntnr*'r .3

[r~

~~

'r

0

' rlKmm

1'::k

Kn

mmIi .4

vacat

'rtn

55

C'Z:

0D'101D p ':X

.5

[

UDAD]~~~nn;5oK7

x;t

In

i'4

nit .6

[nnnnovo

-tion Uno ;t

t5iz]b

inxK' k1Du,~i'tl t:,rnn

.7

[ipnp

m'n*utAo-in1A*

rn:

R=n

tO otti

orb

tA='

.8

[

1:)

Tn7b

Mnlv

IO1":N D'l

n-ntA =T-nk

O;nnC:R .9

[MM

751'I

I'M

'n bM

pnIV

nKt

MITl 5R

I-IZ'1

M,ltK

il'il

Rt .10

vacat

oft

n]18 *1

nA

-

rln

zip.V' m1p.V

.1

column i

9.

[to Abraha]m,

and he

named

him Isaac.

Then the Prince

of

the Ma[s]temah

came

10. [to G]od and he accused Abraham regarding Isaac. And [G]od said

11. [to

Abralham:

Take

your son, Isaac, [your]

on[ly one whom

12.

you [lovel

and offer him to me as a

whole

burnt-offering

on one

of

the

[high]

mountains

13.

[which I

will designate]

for you.

And he got [up and w]en[t] from

the

wells

up

to M[t. Moriah]

14.

[

I

And

Ab[raham]

lifted

J.

Kugel, Traditions

of the Bible (Cambridge:

Harvard,1998)

301-06

and

320-25;

M. Bernstein,"Angels at the Aqedah,"

DSD 7 (2000)

263-291; R.A. Kugler and

J. VanderKam,"A Note on 4Q225 (4QPseudo-Jubilees),"Revue de Qumran 20/1

(2001) 109-16; F. Garcia-Martinez,

The Sacrificeof Isaac

in 4Q225," The Sacrifice

of Isaac: The

Aqedah (Genesis

22) and its Interpretations (eds E.

Noort and

E. Tigchelaar;Themes n Biblical

Narrative ; Leiden:Brill, 2002) 44-57;

and Robert

Kugler,

"Hearing4Q225: A Case Study

in

Reconstructing

he

Religious Imagination

of the Qumran

Community,"

DSD

10 (2003) 81-103.



4/27

EXEGETICALOTESON 4Q225

"PSEUDO-JUBILEES"

75

column ii

1. [his ey]es [and therewas a] fire, and he

se[t

the wood on his son Isaac, and

they went

together.]

2.

Isaac said to Abraham [his father,"Here are the fire and the wood, but

where

is

the lamb]

3. for

the

whole

burnt-offering?" braham

said to [his son Isaac, "God will

providethe lamb]

4. for himself."Isaac said to his father,

"T[ie me

well

3

5. The

angels of holiness were standingweeping above [the altar

6. his sons from the earth.The angels of

the Ma[stemah

7.

being happy

and

saying

"Now

he

will

perish." And

in all

this

the

Prince

of

the

Mastemahwas

testing whether]

8.

he

would be found

weak, and whether

A[braham]

hould not

be

found faith-

ful

[to

God.

He called,]

9.

"Abraham,Abraham "He said, "Here

I

am." He said, "N[ow I know that

10.

he will

not

be

loving." God the Lord

blessed

Is[aac

all

the days of his life.

He

became the father

of]

11.

Jacob,

and

Jacobbecame the fatherof

Levi,

a

[third]

genera[tion.Vacat

Weeping Angels

This

retelling

of the

biblical

story

is

relatively

faithful

to

the

original

in mostdetails.As mightbe expectedof atext thatshares ertainaffinities

with

Jubilees,4Q225 addsto the biblicalaccount-as

Jubilees

does-

that

the

binding

of

Isaac came

about

as

a result of

a

challenge

issued

to

God

by

Mastemah.

The

evident

purpose

of

this addition

is

to

explain why

an

all-knowing

God should

have tested Abraham

at

all-

did

God

not

know

in

advance how

the

test would

turn

out?

If,

how-

ever,

Mastemah had called Abraham's devotion into

question,

then

even

an

all-knowing

God

might

have

arranged public

test

to

demon-

strate

Abraham'svirtue

beyond dispute.

Indeed,

as

the

editors

noted,

this same additionis found in later, including rabbinic,retellingsof

the

biblical story.

There

is, however, one major element

in

4Q225

that

has

no coun-

terpart

n either the biblical

account or

in

Jubilees.

Here,

in

addition

to

Abraham, Isaac,

and the

angel

who

calls

out

from

heaven,

two

groups

of

angelic

observers are mentioned. Column

2

line

5

thus

refers

to a

group

of

weeping angels,

Ml2MTZf]

Erni

rD'rp

'ZIRfl,

whereas the

next

line mentions an

apparently opposite group,

m=10-if

'Kztkr,

who are rejoicing

(line

7).

As

the editors

noted,

the

weepingangelsarenotentirelyunique othistext.Later, abbinic etellings

also mention he

presence

of

angels

weeping

over the

binding

of

Isaac.5

The

motif

of

these additional

angels at

the

binding

of

Isaac has been thoroughly



5/27

76 JAMESKUGEL

Indeed, his motif appearsno fewer than three times in one rabbinic

collection,GenesisRabba, ach timefor a different urpose.Thus,accord-

ing to one versionof thismotif, heweepingangelsarementioned ecause

it

was

their

tears

that

were

responsible

or the

exact wording

of

the

commandgiven

to Abraham

n

Gen.

22:12,

"Do

not send forth

your

hand. . ." Why should the biblical text

have said "hand"when

it

was

really the knife that was threatening saac?

He [the angel] said, "Do not send forthyour

hand to

the boy..

."

But

where

was

the

knife?

The tears

of

the

ministering ngels

had

fallen

upon

it

and it

had

been

destroyed.6 Thereupon] e said to him, "ShouldI stranglehim [with my bare

hands]?"[That is why]

he

said

to

him,

"Do

not send forth

your

hand to

the

boy..." (Genesis Rabba 56:7)

l'5.

n-10

'MOMz MIMI *0;

?K7n1D

IZ't JZO

'V: IMM7:

17,

rT*tm

~tt

not

-II-

btk

17'

nFtn

'tK

-i

:

?I:PDnA

J -irz ,iC:

Another passage seeks to connect

this

motif

of

the weeping angels

with a certainverse from the book of Isaiah:

When our fatherAbraham ent forth his hand to take the knife to kill his son,

the

ministering ngels wept, as

it

says, "Erelim ry out [the angels

of

peace bit-

terly weep]" [Isa. 33:7] (GenesisRabba56:5)

n1c) 5:40

-nD

in

Olrlt n5zKtk;n

nt

Mp,5

I-T, nit

:C,--1t

1=1R

nftc

nm.,

(t

m5

vv') [p'DD C:

u

nt

Or]

vnn

1P

CfR

lIn

-nn

Yet

anotherpassage suggests that the tears of the angels were what

caused Isaac

to

become blind at

the

end of

his

life:

investigated by Moshe Bernstein in the above-mentioned article, "Angels at

the

Aqedah." o detailed s his treatmentf thismotif hat t mightappear ltogetheruperfluous

for me to take up the theme once again

here. However,

I

find

myself somewhatat

odds

with Bernstein'sconclusionsabout the origin of this motif. He seems to believe that

the presenceof multiple angels at the

altar

was a

naturaloutgrowth

of the motif of

Satan's (Mastemah's)challenge to God in heaven. Presumably,once ancient inter-

pretershad come up with the idea that

one bad angel (Satan)had challengedGod, it

was natural or them to assume

that other bad angels should have accompaniedhim

to

watch

Isaac being sacrificed.

I

do not believe

this is

correct.Mastemah

certainly

needed

to

be

presentat

the

altar

n order

o

see how

his

challenge

came

out, but

there

was no need for an exegete to assume that he was accompanied y any of his hench-

men, especially since neither he biblical text

nor

Jubilees offers anything o suggest

this. Indeed,Jubilees s quite explicit

that Mastemah s there alone. Nor,

for

that

mat-

ter, is there any need for a group of good angels to be in attendance.Both the good

and bad angels make their first

appearance

n

4Q225,

a text which is

presumably

aware of the Jubileesaccountand yet which disagreeson

this

one point.The question

I wish to answerhere is: why?

6

The

manuscript raditionvaries

here;

see

J.

Theodor

and

H.

Albeck,

Bereschit

Rabba (Jerusalem:Wahrmann,

965) 603; Bernstein,"Angels

of

the

Aqedah,"

281.



6/27

EXEGETICALNOTES ON 4Q225 "PSEUDO-JUBILEES" 77

When our father Abrahamwas binding Isaac, the ministeringangels wept, as it

says, "Erelimcry out [the angels of peace bitterly weep]" [Isa.

33:71,

and the

tears

from

their eyes

fell

into his [Isaac's] eyes

and

they left their

mark inside

his

eyes,

so

that

when

he

grew old

his

eyes became weak, as it says, "When

Isaac

was old

and

his eyes

were too weak to see.. ." (Gen. 65:10).

'r:n

_11xn

IP.Ux

&wlkk

J.-

'w

MOC

DR5:

Prix

nY

I=t

::R:

pm

;7.Ut

1':"XnD

-

'P'Mt

11":

Z'

:,nD

1nins

r1IIO-

I,-,II murz-llOn n

(r

t

D

In'Prix'1Pt :

-'I'l

0

The occurrence

of an

exegetical

motif in rabbinic writings and, far

earlier,

in

a

text from Qumran

s hardly unique;7 till, it

is cause for

reflection.How did this idea of the weeping angels find its way into

these diverse

texts-and what caused it to

be

created

in

the

first

place? As nroted, he

biblical narrativementions only one angel, the

one

who

cries

out

from heaven, "Do not send

forth

your

hand. .

."

It seems most unlikely

that 4Q225 (or some still earlierretelling)

should have created hese additionalangels for any

of

the

reasons sug-

gested by

the

above passages

from Genesis Rabba.Thus,

the idea

that

the

angels'

tears were necessitatedby

the

wording

of

"Do not

send

forth

your

hand. . ."

seems

improbable

n

two

grounds.

First,

this

sort

of precious questioningof a phrasewhose meaningis fundamentally

clear,

while

altogether ypical

of

rabbinicmidrash,

s

rarely

found

in

pre-rabbinic xegesis. What

is

more, 4Q225

makes

no

mention

of a

destroyed

knife

or of the words

"Do

not

send forth

your

hand. .

.";

if

these

were the reason for which this motif

was

created, surely

the

knife and these words should have been mentioned

As

for the

asserted connection to Isa.

33:7, neither

that

verse itself nor

its sur-

rounding context has anything

to do

with the

binding

of Isaac. It

seems hardly likely

that an exegete would have created

a

group

of

weeping angels out of thin air and then say, "See, that is why weep-

ing angels

are

also

mentioned

n Isa.

33:7."

Much

more

likely

is that

the

weeping angels at

the binding

of

Isaac

had

been

in

existence long

before

the

time

of

Genesis

Rabba

(as 4Q225

itself

demonstrates);

then,

at

some

point

after their

creation,

an

anonymous

midrashist

thought

of

connecting

his

motif

with

a

verse

in Isaiah that also

men-

tioned

weeping angels-so

he put the two together.8

Moreover,once

7Thus, the motif of the Ten Tests

of Abrahamappears

n

Jub. 19:8 and M. Abot

5:3; for this and other examples, see J. Kugel, Traditionsof the Bible (Cambridge:

Harvard,1998) 297-99, 308.

8

As Bernstein orrectlyobserves,"because

t

was not

enough

for the

rabbis

o have

a traditionalmotif of 'watching and weeping

angels' in their Aqedah narrative, hey

sought

for

somethingwhich

could make it textuallybased"("Angelsof the Aqedah,"

280).



7/27

78 JAMES

KUGEL

again,there is no mentionof Isa. 33:7 in the earliestattestation f the

weeping

angels

motif,namely,

4Q225. As

for the

third

ustificationof

this motif,

that the

angels'

tearswere created

o explain

Isaac's

blind-

ness-again,

therewas

hardlyany

exegetical

need

for such

a

creation,

since

Gen. 27:1

clearly states

that

his

blindnesswas

a

result

of

Isaac's

old age.

(Indeed,

saying

that

his

blindness came about

as

a

result of

the

angels'

tearsactually

contradicts

his

verse )

Furthermore,

t

seems

fairly

likely

that this

third remark

s

actuallya

productof the

previ-

ous

two.

That

is,

it

cites Isa.

33:7, just

as

the

preceding

passage

had;

but thenit goes on to suggest thatthe falling tearshad, like the tears

in the

first

passage,

causedsome

harmto the

object

on which they

fell

(here, Isaac's

eyes).

In

short, none of

the

connections suggested

by Genesis

Rabba

appears o

point to

the original

reason for

the

creationof

theseweep-

ing angels.

On the

contrary,

the very

multiplicity

of

explanations

might

suggest

that this was

a

long-standing motif

whose

original

exegetical

purpose was,

by the

time

of

Genesis

Rabba,

no

longer

remembered

r

understood-hence the

necessity to invent

new

reasons

for its existence.

"NowI

Have Made

Known..

It is

not

difficult,

n

the

broader

perspective

of

ancient

biblical

inter-

pretation, o

discoverwhat

that

originalpurpose

mighthave

been.The

story of

the

binding of Isaac

contained

one

elementthat

was terribly

troubling

o

ancient

interpreters-what

the

narrative

eemed to

imply

about

God's

foreknowledge

f

the

events,

or

lack

thereof.

For, even if

one assumed thatGod had initiatedthis public test of Abrahamas a

result of

Mastemah's

challenge,

that

still

hardly

explained

a

later ele-

ment in

the

story:

Then an

angel of the

Lord called to him

from heaven:

"Abraham

Abraham "

And he

answered, "Here I am."

And he

said, "Do

not send forth

your hand

against the

boy

or

do

anything o him.

For

now

I know

that

you

fear

God,

since

you

have

not

withheldyour

son, your

only one, from Me"

(Gen.

22:11-12).

Here

the

angel,

speaking

or

God, says "Now

I

know"-clearly imply-

ing that before

this

test, God did not know.

(There

can

be

little

doubt

thatthese words are meantto be understood s God's own, since the

sentence continues

by

referring

o

Abraham'snot

withholding"your

son, your

only

one, from

Me"-surely

the

word

"me"

here

refers

to

God,

not

the

angel.

As if to clinch

the

matter,

verse

16 has

God

repeat



8/27

EXEGETICALNOTES ON 4Q225 "PSEUDO-JUBILEES"

79

virtually the same words, this time explicitly in his own name: "By

Myself

I swear, the Lord declares: Because

you have done this and

not withheld

your son, your only one,

I

will

bestow my blessing upon

you...

)

To this apparentbiblical

contradiction f the idea of divine

omni-

science ancient interpreters

ame

up

with

an ingenious solution.

The

words

"Now I know," nU' rmn, could be

pronounced n such a way

as to turnthe qal (G) form

of the verb into a pi'el (D); that

is,

yada'ti

("I know")

could be read as

yidda'tl

"I

have made known").This

solutionis found explicitlyin variousrabbinic exts:9

He said

to him,

"Now

I

know," [that is]

now

I

have made known to everyone,

"that

you

are one

who

loves

Me and

you

have not withheld your son..."

n21

J:n

nIf

n

K'rt0l

1

nsc tD' MM1wDT

M 'Z .. *

-IO.

Indeed, the same solution is

found within the book of Jubilees

itself.

There God

says to Abraham:

All the

nations

of the

earth

will be

blessed

through your

descendants because

of

the fact

that you

have

obeyed my

command.

I

have made

known

to everyone

that

you are faithful to me in everything that I have told you. Go in peace" (Jub.

18:16).

This

was a

good solution,but

it

was accompanied

by

one technical

difficulty:

how could an exegete indicate

in

writing

that the

conso-

nantal text

`MDy'

was

to be

read

yidda'tl

and

not

ydda'ti?

Obviously,

transcribing

he

word

into

Latin characters

as

I

have

just done)

was

not an

option

Nor, during

the

period

in

question,

did any system

of

vowel-points

exist. One

might, as Genesis Rabba

and

other

rabbinic

texts did,

write the letter

yodh

twice,

'nfD1".But

such

a

solution alone

might not be easily understood, especially early on; moreover, it

would simply draw

attention o the fact

that

this

was not

the

spelling

used

in

the biblical text.

In

any case, another,

ar

easier option

was

available,

and

it was used

in both passages

cited

above:

If

God were

quoted

as

saying,

"Now

I

have made known

to

everyone,"

TD71

7nD

tDt,

then therecould be

no doubt that the

word 'Ins had to be read

yidda P:one cannot

"know"

o everyone,

but only "make

known."

9 MidrashLeqahTov22:11; also GenesisRabba, 56:12; the text traditionhere reads

t'2D

nmfl-, but this is apparentlyan error. See Theodor-Albeck,Bereschit Rabba,

notes

ad

loc.



9/27

80

JAMES

KUGEL

The problemof "NowI know"was thus solved.On reflection,how-

ever, it raised another albeit minor)

new

question:

o

whom

could the

word "everyone" efer?

In

Jubilees, those present

at

the incident

are

God

(who, being omniscient, certainly already

knew that Abraham

feared

God),

Abraham

who presumably

also knew this about

him-

self),

Isaac

(who may

or

may

not have

known

this

about his

father),

and Mastemahand the Angel of

the

Presence(who

did

not

know).

"I

have made known to everyone" s hardlyan appropriatehing

for

God

to

say

when

referring o two, or

at the

most three, people

Apparently, he authorof Jubilees did not troublehimselfwith this

question.

It

seems likely that he

was

simply repeating

an

alreadytra-

ditional dea-that God

had

"made

t known to

everyone"-which

was

not of his own making; after all, the same tradition is present in

rabbinicwritings whichcertainly id notreceive

t

directly romJubilees),

and

in

precisely

the same

wording, t

T71"

-n.

This

was, appar-

ently, simply

how the "madeknown" radition

had

originally

been

for-

mulated and

subsequentlypassed along.

What

is

more,

as

we

shall

see,

the

authorof

Jubilees

presents

his

own, quite separate,explana-

tion of the problematic phrase "Now I know

. .

."; he may thus have

felt

no

need

to account

for

the "everyone"preciselybecause

it

was

well known and not,

in

any case, his own creation. Finally, if the

word everyone had to be explained, could it not be said to be a ref-

erence

o

the"everyone"whowouldeventuallyhearof Abraham's irtue,

indeed, to futuregenerationswho might read of it in holy Scripture?'0

Nevertheless,

t

was

apparently

his

"everyone"

hat was

the

prob-

lem that

bothered he authorof 4Q225 Pseudo-Jubileesor

its

source).

That

is

why

he

provided

a

multitude

of

angels observing

rom

heaven.

Quite simply,these otherangelswouldbe the then-present everyone"

to

whom

God

was

referring.

t is to

be noted, however,that they

were

not simply a group of pluralonlookers;what they were doing had, in

itself,

an

exegetical purpose.

According

o

4Q225,

therewere

two

groups

of

angels presentat

the

Aqedah, one weeping and one rejoicing; ater, rabbinicsources speak

only

of

one

group,

the

weeping angels. Now,

two

opposing groups

of

angels,

one

good

and

one

bad,

is

altogether

n

keeping

with

the

dual-

ism

characteristic

f

so much of

the

Qumranwritings."

It

seems

to

'? On the specific

mention in Pseudo-Philo's

LAB

of future generationswho

will

hear of the Aqedah,see Kugel,

Traditions f the Bible, 323.

11

My thanks o Prof. Menahem

Kisterfor this point.



10/27

EXEGETICAL

NOTES ON

4Q225

"PSEUDO-JUBILEES"

81

me likely, however,thatthe originalform of this motif may have had

only one

group of

angels-the

weepers-and

that

their

weeping

played

a

further

role

in

this

exegetical motif. Their

tears were a

dra-

matic

way of

demonstrating

he fact

that

they

had

suddenly

realized

that

Abraham

was indeed

willing

to sacrifice his

beloved

son.

(The

same, of

course,

was true of the

expressions

of

mirth on

the

part

of

the

wicked

angels

in

4Q225.) Before

that,the

matterwas

presumably

in

doubt;

would

Abraham

really go

through with it?

But

seeing

Abraham ie

up

his

son and

place

him

on

the

altar,

the

angels

now

realized that he was indeed preparedto go all the way and kill

Isaac-so they

burst into

tears.

Their

weeping thus

provided

graphic

proof

that

"everyone"

had

finally

understood

he

extent

of

Abraham's

devotion; at

this

point-but

not

earlier-God

could

trulysay,

"Now

I

have

made

known

to

everyone..."

Overkill

n

Jubilees

As a

side

note,

it

should

be

pointed

out

that

Jubilees

actuallycontains

another,quite separatemotif aimed at solving this same problemof

God's

apparentack of

omniscienceas

expressed

n

the

words

"Now

I

know."

In

recounting he

crucial

moment n

which the

sacrificewas

interrupted,ubilees

has the

Angel

of the

Presence,

who

is

the narra-

tor of

the

book, relate:

Then

I

stood in

front of him

[Abraham]

nd in

front of

the angel

of

Mastemah.

The

Lord

said:

"Tell

him

not to let

his

hand go down

on the child

andnot

to do

anything

o

him

because

I

know

that he is

one who

fears

the

Lord."So

I

called

to

him

from

heaven and

said to

him:

"AbrahamAbraham "

He was

startledand

said,

"Yes?"

I

said

to

him,

"Do

not

lay your hands on the

child

and do

not

do

anything o him, because now I

know that

you

are

one who

fears

the

Lord.

You

have not

refused

me your

first-born on"

(Jub.

18:9-11).

Here

the author

of

Jubilees

has added

something

to

the biblical

story-he

has

given us

God's

exact

instructions

when

He

tells

the

Angel of

the

Presence

o

stop the

sacrifice.

According o

Jubilees,

God

did

not

say (as the

angel

subsequently

does)

"Now

I

know ..."

He

said,

simply,

"I

know."

Now, this

is

precisely

the

sort

of

subtlehint

that

the

author

of

Jubilees likes

to

give

readers."2

n

his

version of

12

This

solution

has

sometimes

been

obscuredby

modem

translations

of

Jubilees

that seek either

to

bring

its

wording

here in

line

with

that

of

the

Genesis

narrative

or

to

accord

with the "I have

made

known" found at

the

end of the

passage.

See,

thus,

Charles,

APOT

2:40 ("For now I

have

shown..."), C.

Rabin in H.D.

Sparks,



11/27

82

JAMES

KUGEL

things, the angel here is no mere stand-infor God (as would appear

from

the biblical text),'3and what

he says does not, therefore,neces-

sarily representGod's own words.

The angel truly

did not know how

the

test was going to turn

out; thatexplains why,

in

the

biblical nar-

rative, the angel says to Abraham

"Now

I

know..."

But God pre-

sumably

knew all

along; hence,

in

its

retelling

of the

story, Jubilees

pointedlyhas God omit the word

"now"-this omissionwas meant to

remindthe reader

hat, while angelsare not

omniscient,God certainly

is '4

Indeed, that is presumably

why God stoppedthe

test

when He

did:"I know,"He says in Jubilees-that is, I alreadyknow-"that he

is one

who

fears

the

Lord,"

so

what is the

point

in

going any further?

Why

did

Jubilees

include

two

different

olutions

to the

same

prob-

lem,

the

one based

on readingyidda'ti, the other

based on distin-

guishing

the

angel's words

from

God's?

It is an

altogether

common

feature

of

exegetical

texts to

include two

separate,

sometimes mutu-

ally

exclusive,

versions

of

how

a

thing happened,

or

when it

hap-

pened,

or

why.

This is the

feature

called

exegetical"overkill,"

nd it

is

found in

a

broad

variety

of Second

Temple retellings

of

biblical

materialas well as in later, rabbinic exts.'5

The two

groups

of

angels

in

4Q225 are,

as

noted,

an

obvious

addi-

tion

to the

story

in

Genesis, and,

as

we

have

seen,

they

served an

exegetical purpose.

But if

so,

it

may

be well to

scrutinize

other

addi-

tions to, or deviations

from, the

Genesis

story

in

4Q225

to

determine

if

they

too

might

be intended

o

explain

something

n

the

biblical

text.

"Your

Firstborn

From

Sarah"

In theirrestorationf column1, lines 11-12, the editorshaveproposed:

[t

*:pnn

n

pnt

M=t rnp

DU|

P

'7 t ]

.11

Vf'[nI1

]'n7

-rri

'%)

is

1 in'Um

Un[K

rnt ]

.12

Apocryphal Old Testament (Oxford:

Clarendon, 1984) 62 ("for now I know

.

.

.").

The

properrendering, ited above, is from J. VanderKam,The

Book

of

Jubilees (CSCO

ScriptoresAethiopici88;

Louvain:

Peeters, 1989)

106.

13

See on this J. Kugel, The God

of Old (New York:Free Press, 2003)

5-36.

14

This same contrast of divine knowledge with angelic ignoranceis present in

anotherQumran ext, the "Hymn

to the Creator" ncluded n a Psalms scroll (11Q5

xxvi 9-15). There God creates light on the first day of the

creation and the angels

rejoice, "becauseHe showed them

what they did not know."

l5

J. Kugel,

In

Potiphar's House, 38, 134, 146, 256-57; idem,

Traditionsof

the

Bible,

27.



12/27

EXEGETICAL

OTESON 4Q225

"PSEUDO-JUBILEES"

83

11. [to Abralham:Takeyour son, Isaac, [your]on[ly one whom

12.

you [love]

and offer

him to

me as a whole

burnt-offering

n one of

the

[high]

mountains

The

words

Wi

=-T

fll]

[noR

nl:Vn'

MRn

M

rN

:

rrs

p

represent

a definite switch

in the

word order

of

Gen.

22:2,

nt pn

ns

A:

np

Pr

nalk mi-I

t

Ilnnr.

Moving "Isaac"

rom its

climacticposition

in

the

biblicalsentence

certainlyseems to

be an

intentional

hange

on

the

part

of

4Q225. Perhaps

the

purpose

was to

make clear

from

the

startthat it

was

Isaac,

and

not Abraham'sother son

Ishmael,

that

was

intendedby God. This rewriting might thus be contrastedwith the

imaginary

dialogue between God and

Abraham n various

midrashic

retellings, which

focuses

precisely on

the ambiguity n

God's words

until the name "Isaac" s

mentioned:

(God said to

Abraham]:

Take

your

son.""But

I have

two sons "

"Your

only

one

(1-Trn)."

But

this

one is an

only

son to his

motherand

that

one

is an

only

son

to his

mother."

"[The

one]

whom

you

love."

"But both

of them

are

beloved to

me "

"Isaac."''6

In

moving Isaac

toward

the front of

the

sentence,

4Q225 removesthe

ambiguity:almost from the start it is clear that Isaac is the one to

whom God

refersas Abraham's

beloved, "only"son. The

editors'

sug-

gestion

that

the

text be

restored o

nn-MA

fnlt

h,

while

not impos-

sible,

seems

unlikely

to

me;

why add

a

pronoun hat is

unnecessary

as

well as

absent

in

the biblical

text?

Especially

given

the

difficulty

posed

by referring

to

Isaac as

Abraham's

only

son when

the

Bible

clearly says

he has

two,

perhaps

a

restoration

ike -IO

r-e5

r'nrr

In

nat,

"youronly son from

Sarah,"

is to

be

preferred.'7

f

so, then

here would

be

another

ittle bit of

exegesis-although, admittedly, ts

existence is altogetherconjectural.

It

should also

be

observedthat

4Q225

does not

include

the

particle

R2

n

God's words to Abraham n

the

MT,

pnMR

p:

np (Gen. 22:2).

While

K:

had a

variety

of meaningsin

biblical Hebrew,'8

ncluding

"now,"

n

later

times these

meanings ell

into

disuse; thereafter ts use

in

biblical

texts

came to be understoodas

"please,"an

understanding

frequently

eflected n the

Aramaic

targums,

he

Vulgate, and

rabbinic

writings.As

such, the appearance f s: in

Gen. 22:2 seemed

altogether

16

See

b.

Sanhedrin

89b,

Genesis Rabba

55:7

and

parallels.

17

As

the

editors noted,

1lrl

here

represents

a

divergence from Jubilees, whose

underlying

ext seems to have read r-'-'.

18

See

S.E. Fassberg,

Studies in Biblical Syntax

(Jerusalem:Magnes, 1994) 36-51.



13/27

84

JAMES

KUGEL

incongruousn God's mouth:Please takeyour son andkill him Note

that

the

Septuagintversion,

here as

elsewhere

n the

Pentateuch,

does

not

translate he word in

its

version.'9

4Q225

likewiseomits

it.

"From

he

Wells"

The next

deviation from the

Genesis

story is

altogether

straightfor-

ward.

In

the first

column of

4Q225

fragment2, we

read:

[r-ninm

b

u ni-ittarn[11>[nijpnlntt [-it 'lma]13

13.

[which

I

will

designate]

or

you.

And

he got

[up

and

w]en[t]

from

the wells

up

to

M[t.

Moriahl

This

line suggests

something

hat is not

present

n the

biblical narra-

tive:

Abrahamwas

apparently iving

at "the wells" when

God

sum-

moned him

to go to the

land

of Moriah

and sacrifice Isaac. But to

which wells

does

the text

refer?The editors

observe

that "Gen. 21:33

mentionsthat

Abraham

was then

residingin Unv

nf

aroundwhich

were

wells, as the

name implies

(Gen.

2[1]:30-31, 26:33)."20F.

Garcia

Martinezsimilarlysuggeststhat "theplace whereAbrahamand Isaac

are

dwelling

is called 'the wells' and is

apparently

n allusion to

Beer

Sheva."2'

Joseph

Fitzmyer

opines:

"The authorof this

text seems to

have interpreted he

name

[Beer

Sheba] to mean 'seven

wells,'

as

it

was

sometime interpreted ater on."22Robert

Kugler suggests

that

"4Q225

2 i

lOb-13

probably

reflects a

typical

interpretation

f

Gen.

22:1-2; it interpretsBeer

Sheba,

Abraham's

dwelling place

when

God

commanded

him

to sacrifice his son

(Gen.

21:31,

33),

as a

place

of

wells."23

I am afraid that all of these miss the exegetical point of 4Q225

here.

It is

actuallyseeking

to

clarifya remark ater on in the

Genesis

narrative: "And the Philistines

stopped up

all

the wells that his

19

Fassberg, Biblical Syntax,

56-57.

20

It should be

noted that, as a matterof fact,

the last place where Abrahamwas

said to be residing

before the

Aqedah was not Beer Sheba

but "the land

of

the

Philistines" Gen.

21:34). The biblical text may be

implying that this area

included

Beer

Sheba,

but that is not

necessarily

how

ancient readers, such as the author

of

4Q225, would have

understood t.

See below.

21

"Sacrificeof

Isaac in 4Q225," 49.

22

"Sacrificeof Isaac in

Qumran

Literature,"

16 n. 10.

23

"Hearing Q225," 94 n. 36.



14/27

EXEGETICALOTESON

4Q225

"PSEUDO-JUBILEES"

85

[Isaac's] father'sservantshad dug in the days of his fatherAbraham

and filled them with dirt"(Gen.

26:15).

A careful reader of

Genesis

would

have been

puzzled by

this verse:

according

o the biblical

text,

there was

only

one well that

Abraham s said to have

dug,

the

well

at Beer Sheba (Gen. 21:30).

When could Abraham

or

his

servants)

have

dug

these other wells? Disturbed

by

this

question,

the authorof

4Q225 (or perhapssome

earlierexegete) did the

only thing one might

do

under

the circumstances:he inserted in his

retelling

a reference

to the

missing

wells.

They

were

dug, 4Q225

says, just

before the

Aqedah, at the time when "Abrahamdwelt in the land of the Phil-

istines for many days" (Gen.

21:34; this sentencejust precedes the

beginning

of the

Aqedahnarrative).That 4Q225

inserts its

reference

to the additionalwells

precisely

at this

point

was

certainly

no acci-

dent,

since

the

"land of the Philistines" is where Gen. 26:15-22

locates these same wells-as a matterof fact not in Beer

Sheba,

but

in

the area of Gerar.

Apart

from the

significance of the word

mrtcn,

a

minor

difficulty

accompanies

the editors'

attempt

to reconstruct he

missing

text of

4Q225 at this point:

[n-in

r: 5[n

v

ninattn

r

[1]'4li

=1]p5n

t5

[-nnls mal

13

flrTn1rs

st'i

15[

]

.14

The reading

[;rn1,

]

-

is troubling on three counts.

If,

in line

13,

Abrahamhas already reached Mount Moriah

itself, why

should

line 14 say that, presumably t

some later point,

Abraham"lifted up"

his

eyes-apparently

a

reference to Gen.

22:4,

"On the third

day,

Abraham

ifted up his eyes and saw the place rom

afar."

How

could

he see the place from afar if he was alreadythere in the previous

verse? Moreover,

if I

am

right

about the

exegetical purpose

of

the

mention of the

"wells,"

one

would

expect

some fuller allusion to the

verse to

which

these wells are supposed o refer,Gen.

26:15. Finally,

the mountain is not called

nmnn

imF

but

rrnmm2

-ri, with

the definite

article

(2

Chr.

3:1,

cf. Gen.

22:2).

Therefore-although any restoration

here is, once again,

somewhat speculative-I

would expect the miss-

ing portionsof the text to have looked

something ike this:

[nVRmm

n)

i

5-uml-iRn

In [I1Nn

mn]pn

nit

[-nitt-ic^

.1

3

nA

Dinnit

At,i[

;1-mr5

r-it 5RINn r-tnu -inna]14

[which

I will

designate]

or you. And he go[t up and

de]pa[rted]

rom the wells

near Gerar hat

[his

servantshad

dug

and he

we]n[t

to the land of

Moriah]

and

Ab[raham]

ifted

up



15/27

86

JAMES KUGEL

The phrase

I"T8D

rIzr 'IO would more clearly signal to the reader

that

these are

the

same wells thatare mentioned

n Gen.

26:15, where

these same words are used.

"TieMe Up..."

The next item is the

one that has stirred he

most interest n this text.

In the biblicalaccount,

while Abraham

and Isaac are on

their way to

the

place

of the sacrifice,Isaac

asks his father where

the sacrificial

animal is: "Here s the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for

the

offering?"

Abraham eassures

him:

"God

will

provide

he lamb for

the offering Himself,my son,"

he

says-although

he knows full

well

that it is Isaac who

is to be the victim. To

this, according o the bib-

lical account, Isaac

answers

nothing: "the two

of them proceeded

together."

Among

the

many

items that bothered

ancient

readers,

Abraham's

apparent

evasiveness in this

exchange,

along

with Isaac's

pathetic

ignorance

and trust n his father,

were

certainly

oremost.Andso, they

sought to pull the text in a new direction.Throughcarefuland cre-

ative exegesis, they

turnedIsaac into an active

participant:

omehow,

the son must have understood

rom his father's

vague

answer that

he

himself

was to be sacrificed, and

if, nonetheless,

"the two of them

proceeded

ogether," urely this

was a sign

that Isaac had consented

to be offered

up

to God.

There

is no hint of this

exegetical

tradition

in Jubilees

tself,

but

it

does appear

elsewhere

n

Jewish

sources from

the same

generalperiod.

The motif of "Isaac

he

Willing

Victim"

may

thus be

adumbrated s

early

as Jth. 8:26-27

and

4

Macc.

7:12-14,

13:12; in any case, it appears ully somewhat aterin Philo,Abraham,

172;

Pseudo-Philo'sLAB 32:2-3, JosephusJA 1:232,

as

well as in an

early

Christian

ext,

1

Clement

31:24.24

In

all

of these

sometimes

at

great

length-Isaac's

willingness

to surrender

his soul is

firmly

asserted.

But there was one

problem

with this line of

argument.

n the bib-

lical

narrative,

t is related that Abraham

"tied

up

his son Isaac

and

put

him on the altar

on

top

of the wood."

Why

would Abrahamhave

had to tie him

up

if Isaac had

previously

volunteered or

slaughter?

Perhapsbecause this was not a particularly roublingproblem-or,

24

Kugel, Traditions

f

the Bible,

304-306,

322.



16/27

EXEGETICALOTES

ON


87

perhaps, precisely because it was-none of the above-mentioned

sources makes

any

mentionof Isaac

having

been

bound:as far as

they

are

concerned,

the

story that came to be known as the

Aqedah,

that

is, the

bindingof

Isaac,

did not

involve any actual

binding.

(Indeed,

even

later

on,

in

representations f the scene in

Christian

art,

Isaac is

sometimes shown on

the

altar with his hands

visibly

not

bound.)25

Eventually,

however,

Jewish

exegetes did come

up

with

an

expla-

nation for even

this

troubling

detail:

Isaac must have

asked to be

bound

up

lest he

wriggle

at the crucial

momentand so cause the

knife

to slip, invalidating he slaughter.This answeris first attested n three

targums

(Targum

Neophyti,

Pseudo-Jonathan,

and

the Fragment

Targum;

cf.

Genesis Rabba

56:7) whose

composition or common

ancestormay go back

as early,

as the late first

or

early second

cen-

tury.

Thus:

And

Abraham tretched ut his

hand and took the knife to

sacrificehis son Isaac.

Isaac called out to his

fatherAbraham:

Father,

ie

me well lest I

kick

you and

your

sacrifice

be rendereduseless and I

be pushed down into

the

pit of destruc-

tion in

the world to come"

(Targum

Neophyti

Gen.

22:10).26

Up until the discoveryof 4Q225, it was reasonably oncluded hat this

motif, "IsaacAsked to be

Tied

Up,"

was a

creationof the

late first or

early

second

century

CE at the

very

earliest.

However, the

editors

found a hint of it as

well in this

Qumran

ext,

thus

moving

its

appear-

ance back

by

a hundred

years or

more. After

all, in

contrast

to the

biblical

account,4Q225

does

have Isaac

say

something

n

responseto

his

father's

reassurance,"God will

provide

the

lamb for

the offering

Himself,

son."

What he

says

is

unfortunatelymissing, but the

phrase

"Isaac

said to his father"

TMtA

K

pno'

-ion) is

certainlythere,

so he

must have been offeringsome reply to Abraham'swords.Whatcould

Isaac have

been

saying?As

noted,

the

biblicalaccount has

Isaac say

nothing.

Since

the

motif "Isaac

Asked to

Be

Tied Up"

does indeed

contain

some further

words from Isaac to

his

father,

and

since those

25

Kugel,

Traditions

of the

Bible

295;

cf.

J.

Guttmann

"The

Sacrifice

of

Isaac:

Variations on

a

Theme in

Early

Jewish

and Christian

Art,"

Thiasos ton

Mouson:

Studien zu Antikeund Christentum: S Josef Fink (ed. D. Ahrens;Cologne/Vienna:

Boehlau,

1984)

115-22;

R.M.

Jensen,

"The

Offeringof Isaac in

Jewish and

Christian

Tradition:

mage

and Text"

Biblical

Interpretation

(1994) 85-110.

26

For

notes on

the

text

and the

similar

marginal

version, see A.

Diez

Macho,

Targum

Neofiti1:

targum

palestinense

Ms. de la

Biblioteca

Vaticana:Tomo

I:

Genesis

(Madrid

1968)

127,

551.



17/27

88 JAMES KUGEL

furtherwords begin with the letter kaph, the same letter that the edi-

tors discerned n the continuationof line 4, it seemed reasonable o

the editors to conclude that "Bind me tight.. ." or somethingsimilar

was the missing part of 4Q225. The editors therefore proposed to

restorethe text:

[V

'ni

mr

elb

I"ntt9

pnsso

s it .4

4. for

Himself."Isaac

said

to his father,"T[ie me well

This restoration as met with approval rom other scholars.

G.

Vermes

disagreed slightly with the wording, proposing instead

'rn

rtM ie:

("bindmy hands"), utaccepting

he

overall estoration.27osephFitzmyer

somewhat hesitantly agreed, observing

that "the

restorationmust be

right, even

if

nrZ

is

a

rare Hebrew

word,

not

appearing

n

Biblical

Hebrew or otherwise, t seems, in QumranHebrewtexts; it occurs in

later Talmudic exts and rabbinicwritings."28. GarciaMartinez im-

ilarly

asserts "the

reconstruction

nM]?proposed in DJD

[is] quite

a

reasonable

one."29Robert

Kugler,

in

a

recent article, similarly

endorses

the

editors' reading.30Even

the

present author,

it

must be

confessed,at one time considered he proposalat least possible.3'

On

furtherconsideration, owever,

it

seems to

me that

this restora-

tion

is

most

unlikely.

To

begin with,

it

comes

in

the

wrong place.

In

the targumic radition, saac's

words to Abrahamare

not

part

of

the

same

conversation

n

which

Abraham

reassures

him,

"God

will

pro-

vide the lamb for the offering Himself, my

son."

They

come

much

later.

In the

meantime,

Abraham

and Isaac

continue

heir

ourney

until

they

come

to

"the

place

that

God had

designated";

then Abraham

builds the altar and arranges

he

wood,

and

only

at

that

point

does

Isaac say, "Tie me well. . ." This matterof timingis not insignificant.

Why should

it occur to Isaac to ask

to be

tied

up

before

the altarhas

been

built

and

the

time

for the

sacrifice

has

arrived-

indeed,

before

the

two

of

them

have even

reached

the

appointedplace?

And

there

is

a furtherproblem. If, accordingto

the

editors,

Isaac's

"Tie

me

well.. ."

follows

straight

on the

heels of

Abraham's

reassurance hat

"God

will

provide

the lamb

for

the

offering Himself, my son,"

then

27

G.

Vernes,

"New

Light

on

the

Sacrifice of

Isaac from

4Q225,"

142 n. 12.

28

"The Sacrifice

of

Isaac in

Qumran

literature,"

219 n. 16.

29

"The Sacrifice

of

Isaac

in

4Q225,"

53.

30 "Hearing

4Q225,"

94.

31

Traditions

of

the

Bible,

322.



18/27

EXEGETICALNOTES ON

4Q225

"PSEUDO-JUBILEES"

89

his responseis somewhatillogical. Abrahamhas just said, in effect,

"Don't

worry,

an animal

will

be

provided,"

and Isaac acts as if what

he had said was,

"Actually,

'm

planningon

sacrificingyou." Now,

as

we have

seen, interpreters did

seek to

explain Abraham's vague

response

as if it

were

in

fact

hinting

at the truth. The

targums

and

later

exegetes

even

suggested

that

Abraham'swords were to be redi-

vided: "God will provide.The lamb for the

offering[is] my son."32

But

if

that idea were presenthere

too,

then

Abraham'swords to

Isaac

in line 3 would have to be restored

differently,

o that

Isaac's

request

to be bound would follow on some statement,however worded, to

the effect that he was indeed the

one to be

sacrificed-something

like:

-IO

iR

Fl

nmnrnnI

'z

7Wt 01-M*AM A -ri'1 ("And

Abraham aid:

God said that

you

are to be the lamb that is

His").33

uch a restora-

tion would fit

on line

3.

Nevertheless, t still seems to me

unlikelythat

Isaac's first

response

to

the information hat he was to be

sacrificed

should

be, "Tie me

up,"especially

since he and his

father

had not yet

even reachedthe

site

where

the altar was to be built.

Finally, there is the matterof

chronology.True, when one consid-

ers things from a distance of two millennia or more, a centurycan

seem

relatively insignificant.

Nevertheless,

midrashic

motifs,

like

pot-

tery

or

any other cultural

artifact,

exhibit definite

patterns

of

develop-

ment. The motif "IsaacWas

a

Willing

Victim" s indeed

old, probably

going

back at least to the first

century

BCE. But

"Isaac Asked to Be

Tied

Up"

is a

quite separate

motif, dependent

on it but

hardly identi-

cal to it.

If

it is

attested,

at the

very

earliest, only

in

the late first

or

early

second

century CE,

to

find it in a

Qumran

ext of the late first

century

BCE

on

the strengthof a

single

letter

kaph (and that letter

itself far from clear in the manuscript) seems unwarranted.The

improbability

of

this restoration s

compounded

when one considers

the

various

retellings

of the

Aqedah mentionedabove that were

pre-

sumably

written

after

4Q225

(Philo, Abraham, 172; Pseudo-Philo's

LAB

32:2-3, Josephus

JA

1:232,

1

Clement31:2-4); even

thoughthey

contain the motif "Isaac

Was a

Willing

Victim," they seem to know

nothing

of

Isaac's

request

to be bound. One

would have to

assume

32

See

Tg.

Neof. etc.

22:8,

Genesis

Rabba56:4.

33

There

arecertainly

otherways in which the same

idea

mighthave been

expressed:

* rbuf -tzn*mv,b

~

-im u-n*t%m:;

("And

Abraham said: God told me

to

over

you

as an

offering to

Him");

*

IM

T

1: rlznDfll' -m

cDiltR Ci'lmtk IMAtI

"And

Abraham

aid:

God said to offer

you

as

the

lamb

that

is

His");etc.



19/27

90

JAMES

KUGEL

that,while this requestwas knownat Qumrann the late firstcentury

BCE (and

even earlier,

if 4Q225 was not

simultaneous

with its cre-

ation),

it thenwent underground

or a centuryor two

or was deliber-

ately

passed

over-and passed

over by writers

who nevertheless

subscribed o the idea that

Isaac was a

willing victim and who

there-

forewouldhavebeenhard

pressed o explain

n any other

way Abraham's

act of tying up a voluntary

martyr-until

it resurfaced

n

targumsand

midrashic ommentaries

onnectedwith an

entirelydifferent

treamof

Judaism,

namely, the rabbinic

one. And,

on top of all these

difficul-

ties, there is still the one mentionedby JosephFitzmyer, hat the root

nen is otherwise

unattested

n biblical or

QumranHebrew.

The last

shred of plausibility

or this restoration hus disappears.

If the restoration Bindme well

.

. ."

s wrong,

henwhatshould

appear

in its

place?

Here

I

thinkthere

is

every

reason to be guided

by

that

other motif, "Isaac

Was a WillingVictim." Since

it is attested n the

first

centuryCE in 4

Maccabeesand the

writings

of Philo of Alex-

andria,Pseudo-Philo,

and

Josephus and perhaps

adumbrated,

s men-

tioned,

in

Judith),

one would not be unreasonable

n thinkingthat

it

mightunderlie4Q225 as well. Accordingto the versions of Pseudo-

Philo and

Josephus,when Abraham

nformsIsaac that he is

to

be the

sacrificialvictim, Isaac

answersimmediately "withdelight"

according

to

Josephus),

telling

his father

of his willingness

to

carry

out the

divine

decree.

If, therefore, 4Q225

has Isaac

answering

something

after his father has just

responded

o his

question

about

the sacrificial

animal, t would seem

likely

that Isaac's answer

here

ought

to be

sim-

ilar to that of Isaac in the Josephus

or Pseudo-Philo

version of the

story.

A

betterrestorationmight

thus be

something

ike this:

[,mr,

r

= ri

mv;i rsim

rz

ttj

cri:it

btt

pno,

t6Wi

.2

[nac rur

rrrn

nrm

z -ioat

=rinlj5t

=i-izg

-inwi -T*

.3

riouDn

r*ttrzRnDtK ima

bi]5

r:tt

bt

pro,

-s

it .4

2. Isaac said to Abraham

his

father,

"Hereare the fire and the

wood,

but where

is the

lamb

3. for the sacrifice?"

Abraham aid to

[his

son

Isaac,

"God told me to

offer

you

up

as the lamb

that

is]

4. His."

Isaac

said

to his

father,

"A[Il

that

the Lord has told

you,

so

shall

you

do."l934

3 Again, there

are certainly

otherpossibilities:

his

line might

have read

n*

Mn

rr)Di

nirn

mrlan

("Overcome

our

pity

and offer me as a sacrifice") r some

such,

if the reading

D is correct.

Abraham's

overcoming

his

paternal ove

was certainly

a

theme

that was knownat the

time

of

4Q225;

cf. thedescription

f Abraham n

Wisdom

of

Solomon 10:5,

"It

was she

[Wisdom]

who

...

recognized

the

righteous

man



20/27

EXEGETICALOTESON

4Q225

"PSEUDO-JUBILEES"

91

In the next line, line 5, we move to the angels' reaction in heaven:

now seeing that Abrahamand

Isaac have

agreed

and

are

determined

to carry

out

God's command,

the

good angels weep

and the bad

angels rejoice, whereupon

God

can

say,

"Now

I

have

made

it known

to

all..."

It may well be

that

my restoration

s

wrong-for example, 4Q225

might

have

stuck

even closer

to

the biblical

text, having

Abraham

ay

something

ike: *

10tA

-lt-T :~

rti'

sm'1m*A ("God

will

provide

us

with

the

lamb

that is

His")

to

which

Isaac

still

could

have

answered,5In

n0n pI J'mt

1IOR

nm

("All that the Lord has told you, so shall

you do").

In

all

likelihood

we shall

never

know.

But

for all the

rea-

sons mentioned, o suppose that

4Q225

had

Isaac

asking

to-

be

tied

up

seems

a

much

less likely

possibility

than

any

of

these

other propos-

als.

Whatever

he

precise

wording,

the

fact that

Isaac answers some-

thing to Abraham'swords about the sacrificialanimal (in contrastto

his

answering nothing

in the

biblical text) suggests that the motif

"IsaacWas a Willing Victim"

may indeed have figured n 4Q225. But

the

other

motif

that

derived

from it, "Isaac

Asked

to Be Tied Up,"

most probablyhad no place in this text.

Angels Thought srael

Was

Done For

In

seeking

to

supply

the

missing parts of 4Q225, the editors stopped

short

of

filling

out

the

whole of

lines 5-6

of

column

2:

[

nm-n]

b5u 4zi:: z-niu

v-tp

-,DRtm

s

[ nnmo]mnZK501 lKi

70

ii]: nx

.6

5. The

angels

of

holiness

were

standingweeping

above

[the

altar

6. his sons fromthe earth.The angels of the Ma[stemah

As

the

editors

explain

in

their

notes,

the

suggestion that the angels

were

weeping

on

the

altar,

FT=m

,

is

based

on

some

of

the rabbinic

parallels already

discussed.

This

is

certainly possible.

We

have

seen,

however,

that the

element

of

their

being

located

directly above the

altar

so that

they weep downwards upon it appears to have been

[Abrahamiand kept him blameless before God, and steeled him against pity for his

child."(Of

course,

t

was

preciselyAbraham's

ailure o offer any

argumentwhen God

commanded

him

to sacrifice

Isaac, and

the

absence

of any mentionof

pity

or

regret

on his

part

at the

prospect of

killing his own son, that

constituted a

problem for

ancient-and

modern-interpreters,which is

why Wisdomof

Solomon says what it

says.)



21/27

92 JAMESKUGEL

introducedby rabbinicexegetes in order to explain the purposeof a

motif that was no longer understood that is, the angels' tears were

now construed o have destroyedAbraham'sknife or to be responsi-

ble for Isaac's eventual blindness).Since these ideas were apparently

not partof the original "weeping angels" motif, the precise wording

found

in

these rabbinic texts hardly imposes itself here. Perhaps

instead of weeping downwardsonto the

altar,

the angels

in

4Q225

simply wept , "over [that is, concerning]him" (i.e., Isaac, men-

tioned in

the previous ine) or nir' "over them."35

Whatever he case, the missing end of this line and its connection

to

the

next line remain

to

be explained.It seems to

me

that the miss-

ing words must have related somethingthat the angels said-that is,

they were "weepingand saying"-and that what they said must have

in some way been connectedto the fact of their weeping. The initial

words of line 6 make this likely: they seem to be saying that, as

a result of what is going on beneath the

angels,

"his

children"

will

apparently

be

removed

"from the

land."

Are the

angels

not

weeping

because they

now see

(and say)

that

the

descendants

of

Abraham

and/orIsaac are about to be finishedoff by this one act of slaughter?

By

this

logic,

the element

his

in "his

children"

rm) ought

to

refer

either

to

Abraham

or

Isaac-and

either

would

certainly

be

possible.

On

reflection,however,

it seems to me

more

likely

that

the

reference

is

to God.

After

all,

the

people of

Israel are

called

God's

children

in

Deut. 14:1, and this phrase, "God's children,"came

to be

used

at

Qumran

and

elsewhere

as a

shorthand

reference

to

Israel.36I

would thereforepropose o restore he missing words as:

I*zIn

0-nimi

rnKU

n

vr rmn ,7m*R

"And

they

said:

Will

God

cause his

children

to disappear rom the earth?")That is: how can God allow Abraham

to

kill Isaac, since this

will

mean not only

the

death

of

one

person,

but the end

of

the

future

people

of

Israel?Such

a

question

would be

particularlyappropriate

or the

"angels

of holiness" to

ask,

since,

according

to

Jubilees,

God had

paired

this

highest

class of

angels,

along

with the

"angels

of the

presence,"

with

Israel

from the time

of

1s Rachel

weeps

rT":

D over

(that is,

concerning)her children

n

Jer. 31:15;

the

same idea is otherwiseexpressedby the verb 7103ollowedby the direct objector the

prepositions

itR

r

7.

The combination gDMZZs

never used in a locative sense

in bib-

lical

Hebrew.

36

See J. Kugel,

"4Q369 Prayer

of Enosh' and

Ancient

Biblical Interpretation,"

SD

5 (1998),

esp. 128-31.



22/27

EXEGETICAL

OTES

ON


93

the creationof the world. He had established hat Israelwould be cir-

cumcised as

these

angels were

(Jub.

15:27),

and that

Israel would

keep the

Sabbath

on earth the

way these

angels

keep

Sabbath in

heaven

(2:18-20).

And now

it

looked as if

these

angels'

earthly

cousins

were about to be

destroyed

Of

course

they wept.

It is to be

noted that the

editors have left

the end of line

6 blank.

This line

could

certainly

be

filled out in

one

way

or

another-for

example,

DT2Yln

"ntro

D'rmw

(".

. .

were

standing

in

the

heavens

across

from

them")-although there is

nothing

in

particular hat

seems re-

quiredhere.

"Now

He Is

Finished "

We come

finally

to the

interrelated

roblems

ound in

the four

lines

that

conclude this

retelling:

tomow

D:

Zunnol rt

=blh

-13R, 0D.

nnIlgl

onnir .7

[tt-p'l

='U1ttb

cU:-m1A

=

:

tsm

0K

ott

trYd ' .8

L

I TD1

-nl

nngn

>1r

mnwn

rintta

ornnit

.9

[nat T'~n

mrn,n:

pnrr1

it

mm

"kR

I-In

:nm

rm

t

'b

.10

7.

being

happy

and

saying "Now he will

perish."And in all

this the Prince of

the

Mastemahwas

testing

whether]

8.

he

would be

found

weak,

and whether

A[braham] hould not

be found faith-

ful

(to

God. He

called,]

9.

"Abraham,

Abraham "He

said,

"HereI am."

He

said, "N(ow I

know that

10.

he

will not

be

loving." God

the Lord

blessed

Is[aac

all the

days of his

life.

He

became the father

of

The editors'

proposed

restoration

of

the first

line of this

passage,

ON

nn:C:

-t-i

i-ron"

Mt

f, strikes

me

as rather

unlikely

on

two

grounds. First,

Dt

.

..

. ln ("was testing whether. . .") is not a con-

struction found

elsewhere in

biblical

Hebrew.

More

significantly,

it

was not the

angel

Mastemah

who

was

testing

Abraham,

but

God-it

says

so

specifically

in

Gen.

22:1 and

this idea is

repeated

hroughout

the entire

exegetical

tradition.

Beyond these

two

points,

to

have

these

wicked

angels

say

-MWn

n,

"Now

he

will

perish,"

without

another

word,

seems

somewhat

cryptic.

Who are

they

talking

about?

The

word

TItM"

an

indeed mean

"perish,"

n

which

case

they

mightbe

taLking

about

Isaac; but

the

very next line

seems to

suggest that

they feel

Isaac's demise to be far from certain, that is, it is not yet clear to

these

angels whether

(to

quote the

editors'

translation)

he

[Abraham]

would be

found

Documents

Exegetical Notes on 4Q225 'Pseudo-Jubilees'.pdf