Book of Jubilees, פַּרְשַׁת בְּשַׁלַח part 1 of 2

[lethargic_man]

Chapter 48

(Yes, we're going backwards; Jubilees does not tell the story in precisely the same order as the Torah here.)

The Hebrew Bible often has an implicit narrative of what you might call karmic retribution. Jacob deceives his father, for example, and is paid back by being deceived later on by Laban. Such examples are never pointed out; rather, they're for the reader to notice. Jubilees points out one example I've not noticed before myself, at the splitting of the Red Sea Sea of Reeds:

I stood between the Egyptians and Israel, and we delivered Israel out of his hand, and out of the hand of his people, and the Lord brought them through the midst of the sea as if it were dry land. And all the peoples whom he brought to pursue after Israel, the Lord our God cast them into the midst of the sea, into the depths of the abyss beneath the children of Israel, even as the people of Egypt had cast their children into the river He took vengeance on a million of them, and one thousand strong and energetic men were destroyed on account of one suckling of the children of your people whom they had thrown into the river.

Now the Egyptians have done their worst and, as per the Divine plan, been defeated, Mastema gets locked up to allow the Israelites to get as far as the Red Sea Sea of Reeds:

On the fourteenth day and on the fifteenth and on the sixteenth and on the seventeenth and on the eighteenth the prince Mastema was bound and imprisoned behind the children of Israel that he might not accuse them. Then, on the nineteenth, we let them loose that they might help the Egyptians and pursue the children of Israel. He hardened their hearts and made them stubborn; this device was devised by the Lord our God that He might smite the Egyptians and cast them into the sea.^* And on the fourteenth we bound him that he might not accuse the children of Israel on the day when they asked the Egyptians for vessels and garments, vessels of silver, and vessels of gold, and vessels of bronze, in order to despoil the Egyptians in return for the bondage in which they had forced them to serve: We did not lead forth the children of Israel from Egypt empty handed.

* My modern translation renders instead "the Lord our God devised a plan to strike the Egyptians and throw them into the sea", as if God had only come up with the plan at that point. On consideration, I find this unlikely: the rest of the narrative implies God has been scripting the whole thing to a masterplan the whole time.

Chapter 50

I told thee of the Sabbaths of the land on Mount Sinai, and I told thee of the jubilee years in the sabbaths of years: but the year thereof have I not told thee till ye enter the land which ye are to possess.

Presumably from Moses' perspective the Jubilee years are dated from the entry to the land, and since the Israelites have not entered the land, they are not to know when they start counting towards a jubilee year. (From the perspective of the Angel of the Presence, the jubilee years are dated from Creation, and the Israelites will presumably not be permitted to enter the land until the right point...?) Though that said, the angel then goes on to give Moses enough information to work it out:

There are forty-nine jubilees from the days of Adam until this day, and one week and two years: and there are yet forty years to come (lit. 'distant') for learning the commandments of the Lord, until they pass over into the land of Canaan, crossing the Jordan to the west.

This is surprising, because it gives Moses access to knowledge of the future (i.e. that forty years will pass, not two, until the people enters the Land of Israel).

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