The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English (21 page)

[And he shall separate] from every man who has not turned away from all injustice. And these are the rules of conduct for the Master in [those] ti[mes] [with respect to his loving and] hating. Everlasting hatred for the men of the pit in a spirit of secrecy. He shall leave to them property and gain [and the earnings of toil like a slave to] his [lo]rd and the poor man to his master. Each shall be zealous for the precept and his time shall become a day [of revenge.] He shall [perform the will (of God) in all his actions and in al]l his dominion a[s He has commanded. And a]ll that befalls him, he shall enjoy as a free gift and without the will [of GOD] [he shall not enjoy (anything). He shall delight in all the words of His mouth and shall desire nothing that He has] n[ot commanded. And] he shall watch al[ways for the judgemen]t of GOD [ ] and he shall bless his Maker and in all that befalls he shall declare [ ] and with the offering of the lips he shall bless Him at [the times which He has decreed. At the beginning of the dominion of light a]nd the c[ompletion of its circuit when it ret]ires to [its] appointed dwelling at the beginning [of the watches of darkness. When He opens its storehouse and spreads it out and at the completion of its circuit when it retires bef]ore the light. When [the heavenly lights] shine out [from the a]bode [of His holiness together with their withdrawal to the dwelling of glory. At the entry of seasons according to the new moon as well as their completion of their circuit when one succeeds to the other];
IX
(1QS x, 4-12) at their renewal there is a great day for the Holy of Holies and a sign for the opening of the everlasting mercies at the beginning of the seasons for all ages to come. At the beginning of the months for their seasons and on the holy days according to their rules for remembrance in [their] seasons, I will bless Him [with the offering of the l]ips according to the precept [en]graved for ever. At the beginning of the years and at the completion of the circ[uit of their seasons, when they ful]fil their determined precept on the day decreed for one to follow another, the seas[on of early harvest the summer, and the season of so]wing the season of grass, the seasons of the ye[ar]s thei[r] weeks [and at the beginning of] their weeks the seasons of jubilee. And during all my existence the [en]graved precept shall be on [my tongue as a fruit] of praise and a po[rtion] of my lips. I will sin[g] with knowledge and all my music is for the glory of GOD. [And I will] strike my lyre to the order [of His holiness and the pipe of my lips I will] tune to [His r]ight measure. [At the coming] of the day [and the n]ight I will enter the covenant [of GOD and at the departure of evening and morning I will recite His precepts. And in them will I re-establish [my boundaries without return. I will declare His judgement correct concerning] my [trans]gression [and] my [rebel]lion shall be before my eyes [as an engraved precept. And I say to GOD, ‘My righteousness' and to the Most High, ‘A]uthor of my goodness', ‘Fountain of Knowledge' and ‘Source of Holiness', ‘Summit of Glory' and ‘Almighty Eternal Majesty'. I will choose]
X
(1QS x, 12-18) that which He teaches [me and I will delight in His judgement of me. Before I move my hands] and feet I will bless [His name and before I lift my hand to grow fat from] the pleasant pro[duce of the world. At the beginning of fear and dread and in the abode of distress] a[nd desolation, I will confess (His) marvel and I will meditate on His might and on His mercies] I will lea[n all day long. I know that in His hand is the judgement of all the living and all His deeds are truth.] When [distress] sta[rts I will praise Him and I will exalt Him for His salvation. And I will not pay] an [evil] reward [to a man; I will pursue him with goodness. For the judgement of all the living is with GOD, and He] will repay [man his reward ... ]
XI
...
XII
(1QS XI, 7) ... [and He has caused] them [to inher]it the l[ot of the Holy Ones] ...
XIII
(1QS XI, 14-15) ... [He will a]tone [for all] my sins. [Through His righteousness He will cleanse me of the uncleanness of man and from the sins of the child]ren of m[en that I may confess to God] His righ[teousness] ...

Three fragmentary columns of a leather scroll contain damaged sections of 1QS VII-IX. The text translated comes from columns II and III and represents an important doctrinal section of 1QS (VIII, 4-IX, II) in an abridged form. Not only are some of the interlinear additions to 1QS absent, suggesting their later editorial nature, but 4QS
^e
(4Q259) jumps from 1QS VIII, 15 to IX, 12, thus omitting among other things the mention of the ‘Prophet and the Messiahs of Aaron and Israel' (1QS IX, II). It would seem that the copyist of this manuscript substituted 4Q319 (the calendric document of
Otot)
for the text corresponding to 1QS X-XI.

For the
editio princeps,
see P. S. Alexander and G. Vermes,
DJD,
XXVI, 129-52.

 

II
(1QS VII, 20-VIII, 10) ... And when [he has] comple[ted] [two years, the Congregation shall consider his case and he shall be inscribed in] his [ran]k and afterwards he may question [concerning the law. And anyone who has been in the Co]uncil of the Community until he has completed [ten years, and then his spirit turned back so that he has betrayed the Community and has departed from] the Congregation to walk [in the stubbornness of his heart, he shall return no more to the Council of the Community. And any of the m]en of the Community who [has shared with him his purity or his property], his sentence shall be [like his: he shall be expelled. In the Council of the Community there shall be twelve m]en [and] three priests, [perfect in all that has been revealed from the whole Law to practise] truth, righteousness and justice [loving-kindness and modesty towards one another. They shall preserve f]aith in the land with steadfastness and with humility [and a bro]ken [spirit.] And they shall atone for in[iquity by the practice of justice and the distress of te]sting. They shall walk with all men[ by the standard] of truth, by the rule [of the time. When these are in] Israel, the Council of the Community shall be established [to be an] ever[lasting plantation, a House of Holiness for Israel and an Assembly] of Supreme Holiness for Aaron. They shall be witnesses of the truth at the Judgement, and shall be the elect of good [will who atone for] the Lan[d and pay] to the wicked their reward. It shall be the tried wall, [
that precious
]
cor[ner-stone.
They shall] ne[ither rock, no]r sway from their place (Isa. xxviii, 16). It shall be a m[ost] Holy Dwelling for Aar[on f]or a Covenan[t of justice to offer up sweet] fragrance. It shall be a House of Perfection and Truth in [Israel that they may establish a Covenant according to the everlast]ing [precepts.] When they have been confirmed
III
(IQS VIII, 11-15; IX, 12 ...) [for two years in the perfection of way in the Foundation of the Community, they shall be set apart] as holy within the Council of the men [of the Community. And] the interpreter shall not con[c]eal [from them, out of fear of the spirit of apostasy, any of those things hidden from Israel which have been discover]ed by him. [And when] these shall become the Community, they shall separate fro[m the habit]ation [of unjust men and shall] go into the wil[derness to prepare there th]e way of the Truth; a[s] it is written,
[In the wildernes]s pr[epare the way of...
(?),
make strai
]
ght in the desert a path for our God
(Isa. xl, 3). This (path) is [the study of the Law which] He commanded by the hand of Moses. (The manuscript omits the section corresponding to 1QS VIII, 15b to ix, 11, and continues with ix, 12 on the same line.) These are the pre[cepts in which] the Mas[ter shall walk] in his commerce with all the living, according to the rule proper to every season and according to the wort[h of every man].

(4Q
275
)

Previously called 4QTohorot B
^a
, this tiny fragment represents a document describing the entry into the Covenant, known from the Community Rule (1QS), and alludes to a festival in the third month, i.e. the Feast of Weeks of Pentecost, when according to one of the Cave 4 manuscripts of the Damascus Document
(4Q266)
the Qumran Covenant renewal took place.

For the
editio princeps,
see P. S. Alexander and G. Vermes,
DJD,
XXVI, 200—16.

 

[And the Guardian will come] and the elders with him until... and they shall enter by genealogy... And the Guardian shall [curse (the unrepentant), saying ‘Be damned without] mercy. [Let him be cur]sed ...' And he will remove him] from his inheritance for ev[er] ... when he visits destruction ...

(4Q
279
)

Formerly known as 4QTohorot D
^a
, this fragment is one of three small scraps which have partly preserved the division of the Community into four lots or classes, already known from CD XIV, 5-6, viz. Priests, Levites, Israelites and Proselytes.

For the
editio princeps,
see P. S. Alexander and G. Vermes,
DJD,
XXVI, 217-23.

 

... [The first] lot belongs [to the Pries]ts, the sons of Aaron [and the second lot to the Levites ranked in order] each according to his spirit. And the [third] lo[t will belong to the children of Israel in order each according to his spirit. And] the fourth lot will belong to the Prosely[tes] ...

(CD, 4Q
265-73
, 5Q
12
, 6Q
15
)

Extensive fragments of the Damascus Document have been recovered from three of the Qumran caves (4Q265-73, 5Q12=CD IX, 7-10, 6Q15=CD IV, 19-21, V, 13-14, v, I-VI, 2, VI, 20-VII, I plus a text unparalleled in CD), but two incomplete medieval copies of this document had been found already many years earlier, in 1896-7, amongst a mass of discarded manuscripts in a storeroom
(genizah)
of an old Cairo synagogue. Published in 1910 by S. Schechter
(Fragments of a Zadokite Work,
Cambridge), they were reprinted with a new Prolegomenon by J. A. Fitzmyer in 1970, re-edited by Chaim Rabin under the title
The Zadokite Documents
(Oxford, 1954) and in the light of the 4Q fragments by M. Broshi,
The Damascus Document Reconsidered,
Jerusalem, 1992. Cf. also J. M. Baumgarten et al. in J. H. Charlesworth et al., eds., The DSS
II:Damascus Document...,
1995, 4-79. For the
editio princeps, see J.
M. Baumgarten,
DJD,
XVIII, 1996.

Dating from the tenth and twelfth centuries respectively, the manuscripts found in Cairo - Manuscript A and Manuscript B - raise a certain number of textual problems in that they present two different versions of the original composition. I have settled the difficulty as satisfactorily as I can by following Manuscript A, to which the 4Q fragments correspond, and by inserting the Manuscript B variants in brackets or footnotes. At a certain point, as the reader will see, Manuscript A comes to an end and we then have to rely entirely on Manuscript B. Furthermore, two of the Cave 4 manuscripts (4Q266 and 268) show that page 1 of the Cairo document was preceded by another section of which both the beginning and the end have survived. Also 4Q266 and 270 indicate that in antiquity the text corresponding to CD IX, 1 was preceded by CD XVI. In the translation I have therefore rearranged the order of the pages and placed pages xv and XVI before page ix.

The title ‘Damascus Document' derives from the references in the Exhortation to the ‘New Covenant' made ‘in the land of Damascus'. The significance of this phrase is discussed in Chapter III together with the chronological data included in the manuscript. They suggest that the document was written in about 100 BCE and this hypothesis is indirectly supported by the absence of any mention in the historical passages of the Kittim (Romans) whose invasion of the Orient did not take place until after 70 BCE.

The work is divided into an Exhortation and a list of Statutes. In the Exhortation, the preacher - probably a Guardian of the Community - addresses his ‘sons' on the themes of the sect's teaching, many of which appear also in the Community Rule. His aim is to encourage the sectaries to remain faithful, and with this end in view he sets out to demonstrate from the history of Israel and the Community that fidelity is always rewarded and apostasy chastised.

During the course of his argument, the author of the Damascus Document frequently interprets biblical passages in a most unexpected way. I have mentioned one of these commentaries on the marriage laws in Chapter IV (pp. 69-70), but there is another intricate exposition of Amos v, 26-7 on p. 135 which may not be easy to understand.

In the Bible these verses convey a divine threat: the Israelites were to take themselves and their idols into exile: ‘You shall take up Sakkuth your king and Kaiwan your star-god, your images which you made for yourselves, for I will take you into exile beyond Damascus.' But the Damascus Document transforms this threat into a promise of salvation; by changing certain words in the biblical text and omitting others its version reads: ‘I will exile the tabernacle of your king and the bases of your statues from my tent to Damascus.'

In this new text, the three key phrases are interpreted symbolically as follows: ‘tabernacle' = ‘Books of the Law'; ‘king' = ‘congregation'; ‘bases of statues' = ‘Books of the Prophets'. Thus: ‘The Books of the Law are the
tabernacle
of the king; as God said,
I will raise up the tabernacle of David which is fallen
(Amos ix, 11). The
king
is the congregation; and the
bases of the statues
are the Books of the Prophets whose sayings Israel despised.'

The omission of any reference to the ‘star-god' is made good by introducing a very different ‘Star', the messianic ‘Interpreter of the Law' with his companion the ‘Prince of the congregation'. ‘The star is the Interpreter of the Law who shall come to Damascus; as it is written,
A star shall come forth out of Jacob and a sceptre shall rise out of Israel
(Num. xxiv, 17). The sceptre is the Prince of the whole congregation...'