Book of Jubilees, פַּרְשַׁת וָאֵרָא

[lethargic_man]

A short entry this week: The Angel of the Presence doesn't spend much time telling Moses the events of what for him are just the last month, unless there's a halachic or theological point to make. (It's curious then that later on, the attack of Amalek and the commandment to blot out the memory of Amalek is missing; presumably this is because by the time Jubilees was written, this commandment was as theoretical as it is today.)

Last week we saw the blame shifted from God to Prince Mastema (Satan) for the attempt to kill Moses on his way back into Egypt. Here Mastema similarly gets the blame for helping the Egyptian sorcerers replicate the Ten Plagues, because who else could have the power to oppose God, I suppose?

The prince Mastema stood up against you, and sought to cast you into the hands of Pharaoh, and he helped the Egyptian sorcerers, and they stood up and wrought before you the evils indeed we permitted them to work, but the remedies we did not allow to be wrought by their hands. The Lord smote them with malignant ulcers, and they were not able to stand, for we destroyed them so that they could not perform a single sign. Notwithstanding all (these) signs and wonders the prince Mastema was not put to shame because he took courage and cried to the Egyptians to pursue after you with all the powers of the Egyptians, with their chariots, and with their horses, and with all the hosts of the peoples of Egypt.

Note the "the evils we permitted them to work": God's side is in charge here!

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