Retelling and expansion
Creation, the Sabbath and Israel
Genesis concludes creation with God's rest and the blessing of the seventh day. Jubilees develops Sabbath observance through the heavenly world and the election of Israel, connecting the creation pattern with a particular people's life.
Read these as distinct passages with their own references. The columns compare a relationship between works; they do not align equivalent verses or highlight translation differences.
Ethiopian collection
R. H. Charles
Jubilees 2:17–24
17 And He gave us a great sign, the Sabbath day, that we should work six days, but keep Sabbath on the seventh day from all work.
18 And all the angels of the presence, and all the angels of sanctification, these two great classes -He hath bidden us to keep the Sabbath with Him in heaven and on earth.
19 And He said unto us: 'Behold, I will separate unto Myself a people from among all the peoples, and these shall keep the Sabbath day, and I will sanctify them unto Myself as My people, and will bless them; as I have sanctified the Sabbath day and do sanctify (it) unto Myself, even so will I bless them, and they shall be My people and I will be their God.
20 And I have chosen the seed of Jacob from amongst all that I have seen, and have written him down as My first-born son,and have sanctified him unto Myself for ever and ever; and I will teach them the Sabbath day, that they may keep Sabbath thereon from all work.'
21 And thus He created therein a sign in accordance with which they should keep Sabbath with us on the seventh day, to eat and to drink, and to bless Him who has created all things as He has blessed and sanctified unto Himself a peculiar people above all peoples, and that they should keep Sabbath together with us.
22 And He caused His commands to ascend as a sweet savour acceptable before Him all the days . . .
23 There (were) two and twenty heads of mankind from Adam to Jacob, and two and twenty kinds of work were made until the seventh day; this is blessed and holy; and the former also is blessed and holy; and this one serves with that one for sanctification and blessing.
24 And to this (Jacob and his seed) it was granted that they should always be the blessed and holy ones of the first testimony and law, even as He had sanctified and blessed the Sabbath day on the seventh day.
Biblical passage
World English Bible
Genesis 2:1–3
1 The heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them.
2 On the seventh day God finished his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made.
3 God blessed the seventh day, and made it holy, because he rested in it from all his work which he had created and made.
Editorial reading aids
Context for the comparison
The selected Jubilees passage belongs to its account of the creation week. Continue to the end of chapter 2 for further Sabbath instructions, and compare Exodus 20:8–11 for the commandment's appeal to creation.
Questions for close reading
- Who observes the Sabbath in each passage?
- How does blessing become an instruction for a community?
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Text sources and editorial treatment
R. H. Charles's English translation as published in The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament (1913), transcribed by the Christian Classics Ethereal Library. Public-domain translation. Source chapter and verse numbering, including chronological annotations, is retained; editorial chapter summaries are omitted. This is a historic scholarly edition, not an official English translation of the Ethiopian Church.
Charles's Jubilees: full source · About World English Bible and the other Bible editions
Each panel displays the stored source text without rewriting it to resemble the other passage. Verse labels belong to that edition. The observations above describe these selected passages; they are not ancient text or a claim that all scholarly interpretations agree.