נוסחאות חוק במגילת אסתר ובחגי ספר היובלים

There are certain similarities between the legal formulae used to institute the festival of Purim in Esther 9 and those used to institute festivals in the Book of Jubilees and in 1 Maccabees. The Passover legislation in Jubilees 49:7-8 uses the same terms as Esther 9:27–28: ולא יעבור “and it shall not pass”; כתב “written”; עשה “to do” ; בכל שנה ושנה “every year”; בכל דור ודור “for all generations”; אין סוף “no end.”
|The establishment of the Festival of Weeks in Jubilees 6:17, the Festival of Booths in Jubilees 16:29, and the Festival of Unleavened Bread in Jubilees 18:19 all contain a shared formula. This formula appears also in Esther 9:19, Esther 9:21 and Esther 9:26–27. Another parallel is the constitution of Hanukkah in 1 Maccabees 4:59; of Nikanor Day (13th of Adar) in 1 Maccabees 7:49; and of the Hakra day (23rd of Iyyar) in 1 Maccabees 13:52. The common phrases are: על כן “therefore”; קיים “established/ordained”; להיות עושים בכל שנה ושנה ” to celebrate every year “; בשמחה “with joy.”
|The use of shared terminology in these three books has two possible explanations. The first is that Jubilees and 1 Maccabees drew inspiration from Esther 9, and used it as a model for establishing festivals. The second (preferable) explanation is that all three sources reflect technical phraseology commonly used in the Second Temple period to establish festivals. We know of many festivals established during this period, and one may suppose that they had etiological stories much like those in the books under discussion. The second explanation suggested here proposes that these lost stories would also have used the shared phraseology found in the three sources discussed. Thus, there is no need to posit a direct relationship between Esther, 1 Maccabees, and Jubilees, since they all drew from a common stock of phrases.