The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English (59 page)

... [on the ea]rth and in all the spirits of his dominion always. Let the seas b[le]ss him in their turn and all the creatures living in them. May they proclaim the ... of beauty all of them. Let them rejoice before the God of justice with shouts of salvation, for there shall be no destroyer in their territories, and no spirit of wickedness shall walk in there. For the glory of the God of knowledge has shone forth in his words, and none of the sons of iniquity shall endure.

I
For the Master. [First] Song. Praise the name of his holiness; all who know [justice], exalt him... He put an end to the chief of the dominations without... eternal [joy] and everlasting life, to cause light to shine ... his [l]ot is the best of Jacob and the inheritance of G[o]d ... of Israel ... they who guard the way of God and the pat[h] of his [hol]iness for the saints of his people. By the discerning knowledge [of Go]d, he placed Israel in twelve camps ... the lot of God with the ange[ls] of the luminaries of his glory. In his name the praises... he has established for the feast of the year and for a common government that they may walk [in] the lot of [God] according to [his] glory [and] serve him in the lot of the people of his throne. For the God of...

[For the Master]. Second [S]ong to frighten those who terrify him...

II
I have hated all the works of impurity. For God has caused the knowledge of understanding to shine in my heart. Just chastisers (deal) with my perversity, and faithful judges with all my sinful guilt. For God is my judge and by the hand of a stranger [He] shall not ...

... [they shall] rejoice in God with jubilation. And I [will thank Th]ee for, because of Thy glory, Thou hast [s]et knowledge on my foundations of dust to pr[aise Thee].... out of a shape [of clay] was I moulded and from darkness was I kneaded... and iniquity is in the limbs of my flesh ...

Thou hast sealed... the [e]arth ... and they are deep. [The heavens and the heavens of the] heavens, and the abysses and the dar[k places of the earth] ... Thou, O my God, hast sealed them all and there is none to open (them) ... Does one measure by the hollow of a human hand the waters of the great (ocean)? Are [the heavens estimated by the span (of fingers)? In one third (of a measure)] can any contain the dust of the earth, and weigh the mountains in a balance, or the hills in scal[es]? Man did not make these. How can he measure the spirit of [God]?

... God in all flesh, and an avenging judgement to destroy wickedness, and for the raging anger of God towards those seven times refined. God shall sancti[fy] (some) of the holy as an everlasting sanctuary for himself, and purity shall endure among the cleansed. They shall be priests, his righteous people, his host, servants, the angels of his glory. They shall praise him with marvellous prodigies. I, I spread the fear of God in the ages of my generations to exalt the name ... [to terrify] by his might al[l] the spirits of the ‘bastards', subduing them by [his] fear...

II ... I will bless Thy name and in my appointed periods I will recount Thy marvels and I will engrave them as precepts of Thy glory's praises. At the beginning of every thought of a knowing heart and (with) the offering of that which flows from the righteous lips when ready for all true worship and with all...

III As for me, my tongue shall extol Thy righteousness, for Thou hast released it. Thou hast placed on my lips a fount of praise and in my heart the secret of the commencement of all human actions and the completion of the deeds of the perfect of way and the judgements regarding all the service done by them, justifying the just by Thy truth and condemning the wicked for their guilt. To announce peace to all the men of the Covenant and to utter a dreadful cry of woe for all those who breach it ... IV May they bless all Thy works always and blessed be Thy name for ever and ever. Amen, amen.

(4Q
525
)

The title given to this piece of wisdom poetry, consisting of fifty mostly small fragments palaeographically dated to the second half of the first century BCE, derives from the repeated use of ‘Blessed'
('ashre),
modelled on Ps. i, 1, and recalling the Beatitudes of the New Testament (Matth. v, 3-11). The main structural difference between Matthew and 4Q525 lies in that the former each time lists the reward of the virtue for which people are blessed, whereas the Cave 4 text provides ordinary, mostly antithetic, parallelisms instead.

For the
editio princeps,
see E. Puech,
DJD,
XXV, 115-78.

Five types of biblical commentary have been recovered from the Qumran caves.

The first and least developed form of exegesis is contained in the so-called ‘Reworked Pentateuch' texts, consisting of a quasi-traditional text of the Bible, occasionally rearranged and supplemented. To this category belong 4Q158, 364-7, 422, 382, etc. The Temple Scroll (11Q19-20) may also be assigned to this group, as well as the fairly, though not strictly, literal Aramaic translations or Targums of the Hebrew Scriptures (4Q156-7; 11Q10), to which should be added some small fragments of the Greek Bible from Caves 4 and 7.

The second type, represented by the Genesis Apocryphon, sets out to render the Bible story more intelligible and attractive by giving it more substance, by reconciling conflicting statements, and by reinterpreting in the light of contemporary standards and beliefs any passages which might seem to give offence. In a somewhat similar manner, a Commentary on Genesis from Cave 4 (4Q252) attempts to adjust the chronology of the Flood to the specific sectarian calendar of the Qumran Community.

The third type of commentary departs from the biblical text and, relying on one or several passages, creates a new story. Among others, the Admonition associated with the Flood (4Q370, 185), the Words of Moses (1Q22), the New Jerusalem texts (4Q554-5, 5Q15, etc.) and the Prayer of Nabonidus (4Q242), inspired by Genesis, Deuteronomy, Ezekiel and Daniel respectively, come into this category.

The fourth and most characteristic form of exegesis applies prophetic texts to the past, present and future of the sect. Normally the commentator expounds a biblical book verse by verse, e.g. Isaiah (4Q161-4); Nahum (4Q169); Habakkuk (1QpHab); the Psalms (4Q171, 173), etc., but some works - A Midrash on the Last Days (4Q174), The Heavenly Prince Melchizedek (11Q13), etc. - follow the traditional Jewish example and assemble passages from different parts of Scripture in order to develop a common theme.

Finally, a substantial amount of free compositions modelled on the Bible, e.g. Jubilees (4Q216-28), Enoch and the Giants (4Q201-12, 530-33), or circulating together with the Bible, e.g. the Para-Danielic fragments (4Q243-5), and works attributed to Noah (1Q19, etc.), the Patriarchs Levi (4Q213-14, 537-41), Moses (4Q374-7, 390), and many others constitute a fifth category of exegesis. In one way, the Aramaic and Hebrew manuscripts of one of the Apocrypha, the Book of Tobit (4Q196-200), pertain to this class.

(Targums)

Two books of the Hebrew Bible have survived in Aramaic translation in the Qumran caves. A small scroll, found in Cave 11 and measuring 109 cm, has preserved in Aramaic a large portion of the last seven chapters of the Book of Job. Twenty-seven smaller fragments cover parts of Job xvii, 14 to xxxvi, 33. This text, together with small remains from Cave 4 of Leviticus (4Q
156
=xvi,
12-21, see below) and of another manuscript of Job (4Q157=iii, 5-9; iv, 16-v, 4), represent the oldest extant Aramaic renderings of the Hebrew Bible. The translation of Job frequently differs from the customary text of the Hebrew Bible, but it is unclear whether the divergences are due merely to the difficulty of translating poetry, or to a Hebrew original not identical with the traditional Scripture.

It is clear, on the other hand, that the prose narrative of xlii, 9-11 displays notable departures from the text known to us, as may be seen from the following parallel translations:

The English version provided below (Job xxxvii, 11 to xlii, 11) should therefore be read side by side with the translation of the canonical Job. It will be noticed that Job xxxix, 24 is missing from the Aramaic and xlii, 3 is replaced by xl, 5. Furthermore, in Job xxxviii, 7 the phrase ‘angels' is substituted for ‘sons of God‘, a doctrinally suspect expression since Jews rejected the idea of God having children. The same substitution is found in the Greek Septuagint and the Targum of Job used in rabbinic Judaism. Similarly the Targum to Lev. xvi, 14 and xvi, 20 (4Q156) specifies, as do the later Targums, that ‘the Holy' designates ‘the House of Holiness' or ‘Sanctuary'. In short, the Qumran Targums prefigure to some extent the style of the later Targums without attesting, however, the exegetical expansions which characterize the Palestinian Targums to the Pentateuch.