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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
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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.
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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
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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.
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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).
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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
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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.
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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.
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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,
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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
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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.
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16/27
EXEGETICALOTES
ON
4Q225 "PSEUDO-JUBILEES"
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.
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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.
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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.
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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
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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.)
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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.
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22/27
EXEGETICAL
OTES
ON
4Q225 "PSEUDO-JUBILEES"
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
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