Jubilees 48:1-4 reads as follows:
1 And
on the sixth year of the third week of the forty-ninth jubilee you went and
dwelt in the land of Midian five weeks and one year and you returned to Egypt
on the second week in the second year in the fiftieth jubilee. 2 And you
know what was related to you on Mount Sinai, and what Prince Mastema desired to
do with you when you returned to Egypt, on the way when you met him at the
shelter. 3 Did he not desire to kill you with all of his might and save
the Egyptians from your hand because he saw that you were sent to execute judgment
and vengeance upon the Egyptians? 4 And I delivered you from his hand and
you did the signs and wonders which you were sent to perform in Egypt against
Pharaoh, and all his house, and his servants, and his people. (OTP 2:139;
Jubilees dates to the 2nd c. BC)
Commenting on this pericope, Robert Charles
Branden noted that:
The
material in 48:1-4 is similar to the temptation of Jesus (Mt. 4:1-11). In
Midian Moses is met by Mastema who tries to kill him because Mastema knows the signs
and wonders Moses will do in Egypt. God delivers Moses out of Mastema’s hand.
Beyond the point that both Moses and Jesus are challenged by Satan (Mastema) in
the wilderness, the confrontation between Moses and Mastema in Midian is not as
developed as the confrontation between Jesus and Satan in the wilderness. But
once again, a first century Jew familiar with Jubilees and other
apocalyptic literature reading Mt. 4 would quickly note the parallel with Jubilees
and think in terms of a similar demonology. (Robert Charles Branden, Satanic
Conflict and the Plot of Matthew [Studies in Biblical Literature 89; New
York: Peter Lang, 2006], 24)
