lethargic_man | Book of Jubilees, פַּרְשַׁת בְּשַׁלַח part 2 of 2

The Book of Jubilees concludes with the commandment of the Sabbath, which was given to Moses at this point. The Sabbath has been previously mentioned in Jubilees, in the account of Creation. Because there was a lot of information to convey at that point, I deferred that information to here; so here is it is:

Chapter 2 offers a rare glimpse into what constituted Sabbath observance in the pre-Talmudic period (i.e. a glimpse of how much of the Oral Law of the Talmudic period went back to (or further back than) the third century BCE):

Wherefore command the children of Israel to observe this day that they may keep it holy and not do thereon any work, and not to defile it, as it is holier than all other days. Whoever profanes it shall surely die, and whoever does thereon any work shall surely die eternally, that the children of Israel may observe this day throughout their generations, and not be rooted out of the land; for it is a holy day and a blessed day. And every one who observes it and keeps Sabbath thereon from all his work, will be holy and blessed throughout all days like unto us. Declare and say to the children of Israel the law of this day both that they should keep Sabbath thereon, and that they should not forsake it in the error of their hearts; (and) that it is not lawful to do any work thereon which is unseemly, to do thereon their own pleasure, and that they should not prepare thereon anything to be eaten or drunk, and (that it is not lawful) to draw water, or bring in or take out thereon through their gates any burden, which they had not prepared for themselves on the sixth day in their dwellings. And they shall not bring in nor take out from house to house on that day; for that day is more holy and blessed than any jubilee day of the jubilees; on this we kept Sabbath in the heavens before it was made known to any flesh to keep Sabbath thereon on the earth.

I strongly suspect that the rationale that is found in the Mishna, that because the commandment to keep the Sabbath is found in the Torah next to that to construct the Tabernacle, the principal activities forbidden on the day of rest are those which went into the construction of the Tabernacle, had not yet arisen at this point (i.e. the rationale is post-facto). Chapter 50 gives a similar list of forbidden activities:

The man that does any work on it shall die: whoever desecrates that day, whoever lies with (his) wife, or whoever says he will do something on it, that he will set out on a journey thereon in regard to any buying or selling: and whoever draws water thereon which he had not prepared for himself on the sixth day, and whoever takes up any burden to carry it out of his tent or out of his house shall die. Ye shall do no work whatever on the Sabbath day save what ye have prepared for yourselves on the sixth day, so as to eat, and drink, and rest, and keep Sabbath from all work on that day, and to bless the Lord your God, who has given you a day of festival and a holy day: and a day of the holy kingdom for all Israel is this day among their days for ever.

What stands out in this list is the prohibition of sex. Today sex between man and wife is regarded as an activity recommended for the Sabbath day. I have no idea whether this attitude towards it here represents a shift in views between then and the second century CE, or rather differences between the Pharisaic הַשְׁגָפָה and that of the sect (Saducees? Essenes?) which wrote the Book of Jubilees.

A word about the death penalty declared here for breaking the Sabbath. This is in line with the Torah, but the members of the Sanhedrin and later rabbis of the Talmud, as R. Jeremy Gordon puts it, though passionately in favour of the death penalty in theory, were passionately against its ever being carried out. They legislated impediments against it—the need for two witnesses and forewarning the perpetrator that what they are about to do carries a capital penalty—and ultimately legislated it out of existence, decreeing that only a Sanhedrin located on the Temple Mount had the authority to proclaim a death sentence, and then moving the Sanhedrin off the Temple Mount. Even beforehand, the Talmud says that any Sanhedrin which carried out the death penalty once in seven years, R. Eliezer b. Azariah says once in seventy was called a destructive Sanhedrin.

Unlike the Torah, Jubilees spells out that an exception to the Sabbath prohibitions is needed for the Temple worship to continue on the Sabbath:

For great is the honour which the Lord has given to Israel that they should eat and drink and be satisfied on this festival day, and rest thereon from all labour which belongs to the labour of the children of men save burning frankincense and bringing oblations and sacrifices before the Lord for days and for Sabbaths. This work alone shall be done on the Sabbath-days in the sanctuary of the Lord your God; that they may atone for Israel with sacrifice continually from day to day for a memorial well-pleasing before the Lord, and that He may receive them always from day to day according as you have been commanded.

The book concludes with another list of proscribed activities on the Sabbath:

Every man who does any work thereon, or goes a journey, or tills (his) farm, whether in his house or any other place, and whoever lights a fire, or rides on any beast, or travels by ship on the sea, and whoever strikes or kills anything, or slaughters a beast or a bird, or whoever catches an animal or a bird or a fish, or whoever fasts or makes war on the Sabbaths: The man who does any of these things on the Sabbath shall die, so that the children of Israel shall observe the Sabbaths according to the commandments regarding the Sabbaths of the land, as it is written in the tablets, which He gave into my hands that I should write out for thee the laws of the seasons, and the seasons according to the division of their days.

Two interesting things stand out from this list: the prohibition on fasting: the two major fasts of Judaism today can both fall on Sabbath, but perhaps with the solar calendar used by the author of Jubilees that wasn't the case; presumably the book is rather talking about voluntary fasts.

The other interesting prohibition is that on making war. It would not be long after this book was written that the Hasmonean revolt broke out and put the Jews in the situation where if they refused to fight on the Sabbath, they would—and did—get slaughtered in battle, leading ultimately to the emergence of the principle of פִּקוּחַ נֶפֶשׁ, that the saving of human life overrides all commandments except for the prohibitions on idolatry, adultery and murder. But at the time that Jubilees was written, the Jews had been part of large empires for centuries, and had not needed to fight themselves.

Well, that's the end of my comments on the Book of Jubilees; I hope you found them interesting, Judith and ewx... is anyone else still reading this?