Book of Jubilees (37-40)
Chapter 37
1 And on the day that Isaac the father of Jacob and Esau died, the sons of Esau heard that Isaac had given the portion of the elder to his younger son Jacob and they were very angry.
2 And they strove with their father, saying ‘Why has your father given Jacob the portion of the elder and passed over you, although you are the elder and Jacob the younger?’
3 And he said to them ‘Because I sold my birthright to Jacob for a small mess of lentils, and on the day my father sent me to hunt and catch and bring him something that he should eat and bless me, he came with guile and brought my father food and drink, and my father blessed him and put me under his hand.
4 And now our father has caused us to swear, me and him, that we shall not mutually devise evil, either against his brother, and that we shall continue in love and in peace each with his brother and not make our ways corrupt.’
5 And they said to him, ‘We shall not listen to you to make peace with him; for our strength is greater than his strength, and we are more powerful than he; we shall go against him and slay him, and destroy him and his sons. And if you must not go with us, we shall do hurt to you also.
6 And now listen to us: Let us send to Aram and Philistia and Moab and Ammon, and let us choose for ourselves chosen men who are ardent for battle, and let us go against him and do battle with him, and let us exterminate him from the earth before he grows strong.’
7 And their father said to them, ‘Do not go and do not make war with him lest you fall before him.’
8 And they said to him, ‘This too, is exactly your mode of action from your youth until this day, and you are putting your neck under his yoke.
9 We shall not listen to these words.’ And they sent to Aram, and to ‘Aduram to the friend of their father, and they hired along with them one thousand fighting men, chosen men of war.
10 And there came to them from Moab and from the children of Ammon, those who were hired, one thousand chosen men, and from Philistia, one thousand chosen men of war, and from Edom and from the Horites one thousand chosen fighting men, and from the Kittim mighty men of war.
11 And they said to their father: Go forth with them and lead them, else we shall slay you.’
12 And he was filled with wrath and indignation on seeing that his sons were forcing him to go before (them) to lead them against Jacob his brother. But afterward he remembered all the evil which lay hidden in his heart against Jacob his brother;
13 and he did not remember the oath which he had sworn to his father and to his mother to devise no evil all his days against Jacob his brother.
14 And notwithstanding all this, Jacob knew not that they were coming against him to battle, and he was mourning for Leah, his wife, until they approached very near to the tower with four thousand warriors and chosen men of war.
15 And the men of Hebron sent to him saying, ‘Behold your brother has come against you, to fight you, with four thousand girt with the sword, and they carry shields and weapons’; for they loved Jacob more than Esau.
16 So they told him; for Jacob was a more liberal and merciful man than Esau. But Jacob would not believe until they came very near to the tower.
17 And he closed the gates of the tower; and he stood on the battlements and spoke to his brother Esau and said, ‘Noble is the comfort wherewith you have come to comfort me for my wife who has died. Is this the oath that you swore to your father and again to your mother before they died? You have broken the oath, and on the moment that you swore to your father were you condemned.’
18 And then Esau answered and said to him, ‘Neither the children of men nor the beasts of the earth have any oath of righteousness sworn for all time; but every day they devise evil one against another, and how each may slay his adversary and foe.
19 And you do hate me and my children for ever. And there is no observing the tie of brotherhood with you.
20 Hear these words which I declare to you,
If the boar can change its skin and make its bristles as soft as wool,
Or if it can cause horns to sprout forth on its head like the horns of a stag or of a sheep,
Then will I observe the tie of brotherhood with you
And if the breasts separated themselves from their mother, for you have not been a brother to me.
21 And if the wolves make peace with the lambs so as not to devour or do them violence,
And if their hearts are towards them for good,
Then there shall be peace in my heart towards you.
22 And if the lion becomes the friend of the ox and makes peace with him
And if he is bound under one yoke with him and ploughs with him,
Then will I make peace with you.
23 And when the raven becomes white as the raza,
Then know that I have loved you
And shall make peace with you
You shall be rooted out,
And your sons shall be rooted out,
And there shall be no peace for you.’
24 And when Jacob saw that he was (so) evilly disposed towards him with his heart, and with all his soul as to slay him, and that he had come springing like the wild boar which comes upon the spear that pierces and kills it, and recoils not from it; then he spoke to his own and to his servants that they should attack him and all his companions.
Chapter 38
1 And after that Judah spoke to Jacob, his father, and said to him: ‘Bend your bow, father, and send forth your arrows and cast down the adversary and slay the enemy; and may you have the power, for we shall not slay your brother, for he is such as you, and he is like you let us give him (this) honour.’
2 Then Jacob bent his bow and sent forth the arrow and struck Esau, his brother (on his right breast) and slew him.
3 And again he sent forth an arrow and struck ‘Adoran the Aramaean, on the left breast, and drove him backward and slew him.
4 And then went out the sons of Jacob, they and their servants, dividing themselves into companies on the four sides of the tower.
5 And Judah went out in front, and Naphtali and Gad with him and fifty servants with him on the south side of the tower, and they slew all they found before them, and not one individual of them escaped.
6 And Levi and Dan and Asher went out on the east side of the tower, and fifty (men) with them, and they slew the fighting men of Moab and Ammon.
7 And Reuben and Issachar and Zebulon went out on the north side of the tower, and fifty men with them, and they slew the fighting men of the Philistines.
8 And Simeon and Benjamin and Enoch, Reuben’s son, went out on the west side of the tower, and fifty (men) with them, and they slew of Edom and of the Horites four hundred men, stout warriors; and six hundred fled, and four of the sons of Esau fled with them, and left their father lying slain, as he had fallen on the hill which is in ‘Aduram.
9 And the sons of Jacob pursued them to the mountains of Seir.
10 And Jacob buried his brother on the hill which is in ‘Aduram, and he returned to his house.
11 And the sons of Jacob pressed hard upon the sons of Esau in the mountains of Seir, and bowed their necks so that they became servants of the sons of Jacob. And they sent to their father to ask if they should make peace with them or slay them.
— “sent to their father to ask” which father, Esau or Jacob; it doesn’t make sense if he is Esau, since he’s already buried; so he has to be Jacob, meaning; the sons of Esau, instead of begging for mercy, still have the cheek to ask whether to make peace with them or slay them;
12 And Jacob sent word to his sons that they should make peace, and they made peace with them, and placed the yoke of servitude upon them, so that they paid tribute to Jacob and to his sons always.
13 And they continued to pay tribute to Jacob until the day that he went down into Egypt.
14 And the sons of Edom have not got quit of the yoke of servitude which the twelve sons of Jacob had imposed on them until this day.
15 And these are the kings that reigned in Edom before there reigned any king over the children of Israel [until this day] in the land of Edom.
16 And Balaq, the son of Beor, reigned in Edom, and the name of his city was Danaba.
17 And Balaq died, and Jobab, the son of Zara of Boser, reigned in his stead.
18 And Jobab died, and ‘Asam, of the land of Teman, reigned in his stead.
19 And ‘Asam died, and ‘Adath, the son of Barad, who slew Midian in the field of Moab, reigned in his stead, and the name of his city was Avith.
20 And ‘Adath died, and Salman, from ‘Amaseqa, reigned in his stead.
21 And Salman died,and Saul of Ra’aboth (by the) river, reigned in his stead.
22 And Saul died, and Ba’elunan, the son of Achbor, reigned in his stead.
23 And Ba’elunan, the son of Achbor died, and ‘Adath reigned in his stead, and the name of his wife was Maitabith, the daughter of Matarat, the daughter of Metabedza’ab. These are the kings who reigned in the land of Edom.
Chapter 39
1 And Jacob dwelt in the land of his father’s sojournings in the land of Canaan.
2 These are the generations of Jacob. And Joseph was seventeen years old when they took him down into the land of Egypt, and Potiphar, an eunuch of Pharaoh, the chief cook bought him.
3 And he set Joseph over all his house and the blessing of the Lord came upon the house of the Egyptian on account of Joseph, and the Lord prospered him in all that he did.
4 And the Egyptian committed everything into the hands of Joseph; for he saw that the Lord was with him, and that the Lord prospered him in all that he did.
5 And Joseph’s appearance was comely [and very beautiful was his appearance], and his master’s wife lifted up her eyes and saw Joseph, and she loved him and besought him to lie with her.
6 But he did not surrender his soul, and he remembered the Lord and the words which Jacob, his father, used to read from amongst the words of Abraham, that no man should commit fornication with a woman who has a husband; that for him the punishment of death has been ordained in the heavens before the Most High God, and the sin will be recorded against him in the eternal books continually before the Lord.
7 And Joseph remembered these words and refused to lie with her.
8 And she besought him for a year, but he refused and would not listen.
9 But she embraced him and held him fast in the house in order to force him to lie with her, and closed the doors of the house and held him fast; but he left his garment in her hands and broke through the door and fled without from her presence.
10 And the woman saw that he would not lie with her, and she calumniated him in the presence of his lord, saying ‘Your Hebrew servant, whom you lovest, sought to force me so that he might lie with me; and it came to pass when I lifted up my voice that he fled and left his garment in my hands when I held him, and he brake through the door.’
11 And the Egyptian saw the garment of Joseph and the broken door, and heard the words of his wife, and cast Joseph into prison into the place where the prisoners were kept whom the king imprisoned.
12 And he was there in the prison; and the Lord gave Joseph favour in the sight of the chief of the prison guards and compassion before him, for he saw that the Lord was with him, and that the Lord made all that he did to prosper.
13 And he committed all things into his hands, and the chief of the prison guards knew of nothing that was with him, for Joseph did every thing, and the Lord perfected it.
14 And he remained there two years. And in those days Pharaoh, king of Egypt was angry against his two eunuchs, against the chief butler, and against the chief baker, and he put them in ward in the house of the chief cook, in the prison where Joseph was kept.
15 And the chief of the prison guards appointed Joseph to serve them; and he served before them.
16 And they both dreamed a dream, the chief butler and the chief baker, and they told it to Joseph.
17 And as he interpreted to them so it befell them, and Pharaoh restored the chief butler to his office and the (chief) baker he slew, as Joseph had interpreted to them.
18 But the chief butler forgot Joseph in the prison, although he had informed him what would befall him, and did not remember to inform Pharaoh how Joseph had told him, for he forgot.
Chapter 40
1 And in those days Pharaoh dreamed two dreams in one night concerning a famine which was to be in all the land, and he awoke from his sleep and called all the interpreters of dreams that were in Egypt, and magicians, and told them his two dreams, and they were not able to declare (them).
2 And then the chief butler remembered Joseph and spoke of him to the king, and he brought him forth from the prison, and he to]d his two dreams before him.
3 And he said before Pharaoh that his two dreams were one, and he said to him: ‘Seven years shall come (in which there shall be) plenty over all the land of Egypt, and after that seven years of famine, such a famine as has not been in all the land.
4 And now let Pharaoh appoint overseers in all the land of Egypt, and let them store up food in every city throughout the days of the years of plenty, and there will be food for the seven years of famine, and the land will not perish through the famine, for it will be very severe.’
5 And the Lord gave Joseph favour and mercy in the eyes of Pharaoh, and Pharaoh said to his servants. We shall not find such a wise and discreet man as this man, for the spirit of the Lord is with him.’
6 And he appointed him the second in all his kingdom and gave him authority over all Egypt, and caused him to ride in the second chariot of Pharaoh.
7 And he clothed him with byssus garments, and he put a gold chain upon his neck, and (a herald) proclaimed before him ‘ ‘El ‘El wa ‘Abirer,’ and placed a ring on his hand and made him ruler over all his house, and magnified him, and said to him.
8 ‘Only on the throne shall I be greater than you.’ And Joseph ruled over all the land of Egypt, and all the princes of Pharaoh, and all his servants, and all who did the king’s business loved him, for he walked in uprightness, for he was without pride and arrogance, and he had no respect of persons, and did not accept gifts, but he judged in uprightness all the people of the land.
9 And the land of Egypt was at peace before Pharaoh because of Joseph, for the Lord was with him, and gave him favour and mercy for all his generations before all those who knew him and those who heard concerning him, and Pharaoh’s kingdom was well ordered, and there was no Satan and no evil person (therein).
10 And the king called Joseph’s name Sephantiphans, and gave Joseph to wife the daughter of Potiphar, the daughter of the priest of Heliopolis, the chief cook.
11 And on the day that Joseph stood before Pharaoh he was thirty years old [when he stood before Pharaoh].
12 And in that year Isaac died. And it came to pass as Joseph had said in the interpretation of his two dreams, according as he had said it, there were seven years of plenty over all the land of Egypt, and the land of Egypt abundantly produced, one measure (producing) eighteen hundred measures.
13 And Joseph gathered food into every city until they were full of corn until they could no longer count and measure it for its multitude.
Joel
A Prophecy of Esau and Jacob 