Abrahamic Covenant

In the patriarchal narratives preserved within the ancient pseudepigraphal traditions, the divine assurances extended to Abraham establish a foundational bond centered on the multiplication of his seed, possession of the land of Canaan, and the extension of blessing to all nations through his lineage. The Book of Jubilees elaborates these commitments across chapters 12 through 15, portraying them not merely as isolated promises but as elements woven into a broader divine order that aligns with the calendrical and ethical frameworks revealed to earlier figures. This presentation situates Abraham's role as a renewal of the righteous path disrupted by the Watchers, linking his obedience to the cosmic patterns first disclosed in Enochic visions of judgment and restoration. Central to this arrangement in Jubilees 15 is the command for circumcision, enacted on the eighteenth day of the fifth month when Abraham, Ishmael, and the males of his household submit to the sign that marks perpetual fidelity. The text specifies that this token applies across generations, with failure to observe it resulting in exclusion from the covenantal community, thereby emphasizing both the conditional and enduring qualities of the relationship. Such details underscore how the agreement functions as a safeguard against the moral corruption detailed in earlier Enochic accounts, preserving a distinct lineage amid surrounding nations. These assurances receive explicit reaffirmation with Isaac and Jacob, as Jubilees 17 and 27 recount the renewal of the land and progeny promises during periods of famine and sojourn, while the Book of Jasher chapters 16 and 22 depict similar divine encounters that stress continuity through trials and familial succession. The narratives highlight Jacob's receipt of the blessing at Bethel, extending the scope to twelve tribes destined to fill the earth. Within the Enochian tradition, these patriarchal developments echo the eschatological hopes of 1 Enoch, where the survival and ultimate vindication of the righteous seed counterbalance the primordial rebellions, framing Abraham's covenant as a pivotal chapter in the ongoing divine plan for cosmic renewal.

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Covenant Details

Parties: God and Abraham/his seed
Sign: Circumcision

Key Chapters

The Book of Jubilees 15 The Birth of Ishmael; Institution of Circumcision 7 min read The Book of Jubilees 24 Isaac at the Well of Vision; Sells His Birthright 7 min read

Key Passages

Covenant with Abram

The Book of Jubilees 15:1-34

A¹nd in the fifth year of the fourth week of this jubilee, in the third month, in the middle of the month, Abram celebrated the feast of the first-fruits of the grain harvest. And he offered new offerings on the altar, the first-fruits of the produce, unto the Lord, an heifer and a goat and a sheep on the altar as a burnt sacrifice unto the Lord; their fruit offerings and their drink offerings he offered upon the altar with frankincense. And the Lord appeared to Abram, and said unto him:

² 'I am God Almighty; approve thyself before me and be thou perfect. And I will make My covenant between Me and thee, and I will multiply thee exceedingly.' And Abram fell on his face, and God talked with him, and said: ³ 'Behold my ordinance is with thee, And thou shalt be the father of many nations. ⁴ Neither shall thy name any more be called Abram, But thy name from henceforth, even for ever, shall be Abraham. For the father of many nations have I made thee. And I will make thee very great, And I will make thee into nations, And kings shall come forth from thee. ⁵ And I shall establish My covenant between Me and thee, and thy seed after thee, throughout their generations, for an eternal covenant, so that I may be a God unto thee, and to thy seed after thee. ⁶ the land where thou hast been a sojourner, the land of Canaan, that thou mayst possess it for ever, and I will be their God.' And the Lord said unto Abraham: 'And as for thee, do thou keep my covenant, thou and thy seed after thee: and circumcise ye every male among you, and circumcise your foreskins, and it shall be a token of an eternal covenant between Me and you. And the child on the eighth day ye shall circumcise, every male throughout your generations, him that is born in the house, or whom ye have bought with money from any stranger, whom ye have acquired who is not of thy seed. He that is born in thy house shall surely be circumcised, and those whom thou hast bought with money shall be circum- cised, and My covenant shall be in your flesh for an eternal ordinance. And the uncircumcised male who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin on the eighth day, that soul shall be cut off from his people, for he has broken My covenant.' And God said unto Abraham: 'As for Sarai thy wife, her name shall no more be called Sarai, but Sarah shall be her name. And I will bless her, and give thee a son by her, and I will bless him, and he shall become a nation, and kings of nations shall proceed from him.' And Abraham fell on his face, and rejoiced, and said in his heart: 'Shall a son be born to him that is a hundred years old, and shall Sarah, who is ninety years old, bring forth' 18,19 And Abraham said unto God: 'O that Ishmael might live before thee!' And God said: 'Yea, and Sarah also shall bear thee a son, and thou shalt call his name Isaac, and I will establish My covenant with him, an everlasting covenant, and for his seed after him. And as for Ishmael also have I heard thee, and behold I will bless him, and make him great, and multiply him exceedingly, and he shall beget twelve princes, and I will make him a great nation. But My covenant will ⁷ I establish with Isaac, whom Sarah shall bear to thee, in these days, in the next year.' And He left off speaking with him, and God went up from Abraham. And Abraham did according as God had said unto him, and he took Ishmael his son, and all that were born in his house, and whom he had bought with his money, every male in his house, and circumcised the flesh of their foreskin. And on the selfsame day was Abraham circumcised, and all the men of his house, , and all those, whom he had bought with money from the children of the stranger, were circumcised with him. This law is for all the generations for ever, and there is no circumcision of the days, and no omission of one day out of the eight days; for it is an eternal ordinance, ordained and written on the heavenly tablets. And every one that is born, the flesh of whose foreskin is not circumcised on the eighth day, belongs not to the children of the covenant which the Lord made with Abraham, but to the children of destruction; nor is there, moreover, any sign on him that he is the Lord's, but (he is destined) to be destroyed and slain from the earth, and to be rooted out of the earth, for he has broken the covenant of the Lord our God. For all the angels of the presence and all the angels of sanctification have been so created from the day of their creation, and before the angels of the presence and the angels of sanctification He hath sanctified Israel, that they should be with Him and with His holy angels. And do thou command the children of Israel and let them observe the sign of this covenant for their generations as an eternal ordinance, and they will not be rooted out of the land. For the command is ordained for a covenant, that they should observe it for ever among all the children of Israel. For Ishmael and his sons and his brothers and Esau, the Lord did not cause to approach Him, and he chose them not because they are the children of ⁸ Abraham, because He knew them, but He chose Israel to be His people. And He sanctified it, and gathered it from amongst all the children of men; for there are many nations and many peoples, and all are His, and over all hath He placed spirits in authority to lead them astray from Him. ⁹ But over Israel He did not appoint any angel or spirit, for He alone is their ruler, and He will preserve them and require them at the hand of His angels and His spirits, and at the hand of all His powers in order that He may preserve them and bless them, and that they may be His and He may be theirs from henceforth for ever. And now I announce unto thee that the children of Israel will not keep true to this ordinance, and they will not circumcise their sons according to all this law; for in the flesh of their circumcision they will omit this circumcision of their sons, and all of them, sons of Beliar, will leave their sons uncircumcised as they were born. And there will be great wrath from the Lord against the children of Israel. because they have forsaken His covenant and turned aside from His word, and provoked and blasphemed, inasmuch as they do not observe the ordinance of this law; for they have treated their members like the Gentiles, so that they may be removed and rooted out of the land. And there will no more be pardon or forgiveness unto them for all the sin of this eternal error.

Renewed with Isaac

The Book of Jubilees 24:1-10

A¹nd it came to pass after the death of Abraham, that the Lord blessed Isaac his son, and he arose from Hebron and went and dwelt at the Well of the Vision in the first year of the third week of this jubilee, seven years. And in the first year of the fourth week a famine began in the land, besides the first famine, which had been in the days of Abraham. And Jacob sod lentil pottage, and Esau came from the field hungry. And he said to Jacob his brother: 'Give me of this red pottage.' And Jacob said to him: 'Sell to me thy birthright and I will give thee bread, and also some of this lentil pottage.' And Esau said in his heart: 'I shall die; of what profit to me is this birthright 'And he said to Jacob: 'I give it to thee.' And Jacob said:

² 'Swear to me, this day,' and he sware unto him. And Jacob gave his brother Esau bread and pottage, and he eat till he was satisfied, and Esau despised his birthright; for this reason was Esau's name called Edom, on account of the red pottage which Jacob gave him for his birthright. And Jacob became the elder, and Esau was brought down from his dignity. And the famine was over the land, and Isaac departed to go down into Egypt in the second year of this week, and went to the king of the Philis- tines to Gerar, unto Abimelech. And the Lord appeared unto him and said unto him: 'Go not down into Egypt; dwell in the land that I shall tell thee of, and sojourn in this land, and I will be with thee and bless thee. For to thee and to thy seed will I give all this land, and I will establish My oath which I sware unto Abraham thy father, and I will multiply thy seed as the stars of heaven, and will give unto thy seed all this land. And in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed, because thy father obeyed My voice, and kept My charge and My commandments, and My laws, and My ordinances, and My covenant; and now obey My voice and dwell in 12,13 this land.' And he dwelt in Gelar three weeks of years. And Abimelech charged concerning him, and concerning all that was his, saying: 'Any man that shall touch him or aught that is his shall surely die.' And Isaac waxed strong among the Philistines, and he got many possessions, oxen and sheep and camels and asses and a great household. And he sowed in the land of the Philistines and brought in a hundred-fold, and Isaac became exceedingly great, and the Philistines envied him. ³ Now all the wells which the servants of Abraham had dug during the life of Abraham, the Philistines had stopped them after the death of Abraham, and filled them with earth. And Abimelech said unto Isaac: 'Go from us, for thou art much mightier than we', and Isaac departed thence in the first year of the seventh week, and sojourned in the valleys of Gerar. And they digged again the wells of water which the servants of Abraham, his father, had digged, and which the Philistines had closed after the death of Abraham his father, and he called their names as Abraham his father had named them. And the servants of Isaac dug a well in the valley, and found living water, and the shepherds of Gerar strove with the shepherds of Isaac, saying: 'The water is ours'; and Isaac called the name of the well 'Perversity', because they had been perverse with us. And they dug a second well, and they strove for that also, and he called its name 'Enmity'. And he arose from thence and they digged another well, and for that they strove not, and he called the name of it 'Room', and Isaac said: 'Now the Lord hath made room for us, and we have increased in the land.' And he went up from thence to the Well of the Oath in the first year of the first week in the forty-fourth jubilee. And the Lord appeared to him that night, on the new moon of the first month, and said unto him: 'I am the God of Abraham thy father; fear not, for I am with thee, and shall bless thee and shall surely multiply thy seed as the sand of the earth, for the sake of Abraham my servant.' And he built an altar there, which Abraham his father had first built, and he called upon the name of the Lord, and he offered sacrifice to the God of Abraham his father. And they digged a well and they found living water. And the servants of Isaac digged another well and did not find water, and they went and told Isaac that they had not found water, and Isaac said: 'I have sworn this day to the Philistines and this thing has been announced to us.' And he called the name of that place the Well of the Oath; for there he had sworn to Abimelech and Ahuzzath his friend and ⁴ Phicol the prefect Or his host. And Isaac knew that day that under constraint he had sworn to them to make peace with them. And Isaac on that day cursed the Philistines and said: 'Cursed be the Philistines unto the day of wrath and indignation from the midst of all nations; may God make them a derision and a curse and an object of wrath and indignation in the hands of the sinners the ⁵ Gentiles and in the hands of the Kittim. And whoever escapes the sword of the enemy and the Kittim, may the righteous nation root out in judgment from under heaven; for they shall be the enemies and foes of my children throughout their generations upon the earth. ⁶ And no remnant shall be left to them, Nor one that shall be saved on the day of the wrath of judgment; For destruction and rooting out and expulsion from the earth is the whole seed of the Philistines (reserved), And there shall no longer be left for these Caphtorim a name or a seed on the earth. ⁷ For though he ascend unto heaven, Thence shall he be brought down, And though he make himself strong on earth, Thence shall he be dragged forth, And though he hide himself amongst the nations, Even from thence shall he be rooted out; And though he descend into Sheol, There also shall his condemnation be great, And there also he shall have no peace. ⁸ And if he go into captivity, By the hands of those that seek his life shall they slay him on the way, And neither name nor seed shall be left to him on all the earth; For into eternal malediction shall he depart.' ⁹ And thus is it written and engraved concerning him on the heavenly tablets, to do unto him on the day of judgment, so that he may be rooted out of the earth.

Did You Know?

Circumcision is the sign given to Abraham as a perpetual mark.

The covenant is unconditional in its promises but conditional in blessing.