6 - The Triumph Of God (Descriptions of the Final Age)

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There shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation even to that same time; and at that time thy people shall be delivered, every one that shall be found written in the book.

(Daniel 12.1.)

Repent, for the Kingdom of God is at hand.

(Matthew 3.2.)

Cause us to rejoice, O Lord our God, in the coming of Thy servant Elijah the prophet, and in the kingdom of the house of David, Thine anointed. Soon may he come and gladden our hearts!

Let there no stranger sit upon his throne, nor to his glory alien men fall heir, for Thou hast sworn unto him by Thy holy name that his lamp shall never go out.

From The Jewish Sabbath Morning Service

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Introduction

~~ I ~~

From time immemorial, it has been the custom in many parts of the world to usher in the New Year or a new season by staging a pantomimic combat in which the New defeats the Old, Fertility discomfits Drought, Summer ousts Winter, or Life subdues Death. Traces of such primitive ritual survive to this day in the European Mummers' Plays, which are acted out on crucial calendar dates (e.g. Midsummer) and which portray the conflict of the seasons or the triumph of a valiant 'Saint George' over a grisly dragon which threatens to engulf the earth.

In ancient Babylon, an essential element of the New Year ritual was the recital (possibly also the enactment) of a time-honored myth relating the victory of Marduk, the patron god of the city, over Tiamat, a draconic marplot who sought to overthrow the authority of the gods.

In Canaan, a similar story rehearsing the defeat of Yam, the god of the waters, and Mot, the god of death, by Baal, lord of fertility, is preserved on clay tablets of the fourteenth century B.C. discovered, since 1929, at Ras Shamra on the north coast of Syria; and it is probable that this was recited in connection with the New Year festival, celebrated at the time when the drought broke and the early rains began. Moreover, vestiges of a similar myth, in which Yahweh (Jehovah) is portrayed as having conquered the draconic Leviathan in a primordial battle-royal, may also be detected in sundry poetic passages of the Old Testament (Pss. 74.13-14; Job 9.13; 26.12-13).

What is deemed necessary to restore the world-order from year to year is deemed necessary a fortiori in order to bring in the New Age which will succeed the present Era of Corruption. The seasonal battle thus becomes projected into eschatology—that is, into the standard picture of the Last Things. In Jewish folklore, as represented by numerous references in pseudepigraphic literature and in the Talmud, the adversaries of God in this final conflict were identified not so much with demonic or cosmic pow-ers as with the unrighteous elements among men—the heathen and the recalcitrant who served the Prince of Darkness (Belial) and constituted his 'army'.

In accordance with a celebrated prophecy in the Book of Ezekiel (chaps. 38-39), these earthly antagonists were in turn identified more especially with 'the children of Gog and Magog'—originally, remote northern peoples from 'the back of the beyond', but now regarded, in a purely metaphorical sense, as symbolic of all who denied the God of Israel and oppressed His chosen. Moreover, in line with what the prophet Zechariah had foretold (14.3-5), it was held that the Lord Himself would come with His heavenly legions and fight on behalf of His people.

The war against Gog and Magog formed the more militant complement to that process of inner regeneration and repentance that was to secure the advent of God's Kingdom on earth. If Israel itself might ensure its continuance and the restoration of its fortunes by a sincere return to the Law and the Covenant, it was nevertheless essential that the wicked should be finally and irretrievably put to rout.

1. To men who believed that the Final Age was indeed at hand, preparations for this war were a matter of imminent and urgent concern. They had to have a detailed Plan of Campaign. The War of the Sons of Light and the Sons of Darkness (inscribed on one of the scrolls discovered by the bedouin boys in 1947) is such a plan—a kind of G.H.Q. manual for the guidance of the Brotherhood at 'Armageddon'.

Not the least interesting feature of this document is that it is far from being a mere fanciful lucubration, something spun out of thin air. On the contrary, as General Yigael Yadin has pointed out, it very largely conforms to standard Roman patterns of military organization, procedure and strategy. A few examples (drawn from the present writer's independent observations) must here suffice:

(1) The troops are to be drawn up in three lines [viii, 6]; this is the Roman triplex acies (Sallust, Jugurtha, 49). (2) The soldiers who initiate the attack are to hurl javelins seven times into the enemy ranks [vi, 1]; this recalls the fact that the front-line velites of the Roman army were armed with seven javelins (Livy, xxiv, 34). (3) The attack is to be launched to the accompaniment of a united war-cry destined to strike terror in the heart of the foe [viii, 9-10]; the same practise obtained among the Romans (Caesar, Bell. Civ., iii, 92; Livy, vii, 36; Sallust, Catiline, 60). (4) The high priest exhorted the troops before they went into action, and addressed them as 'warriors' [xii, 10]; this is simply an adaptation of the allocutio delivered by a Roman general.

He, too, was expected to call them milites; when Caesar once addressed them as Quirites, this aroused indignation (Suetonius, Caes., 70; Dio, xlii, 53). (5) The 'trumpets of assembly' answer to the Roman tuba concionis; (6) the inscriptions on the standards are in accordance with Roman usage (Veget., ii, 13), though cleverly adapted in accordance with the Biblical phrase, 'In the name of our God will we set up our banners' (Ps. 20.6).

We cannot yet tell when this document was written. A clue to the date has been recognized by some scholars in the fact that two of the prime enemies of Israel are identified as 'the Kittians of Assyria' and 'the Kittians of Egypt'. Since the Biblical term 'Kittians'—originally denoting the inhabitants of Kition in Cyprus—was used in Hellenistic Jewish literature to denote the 'Macedonians' of the Alexandrian Empire, it has been supposed that this refers to the Seleucids of Syria and the Ptolemies of Egypt, which would mean—in the words of its original editor, the late Professor E. L. Sukenik—'that this scroll was composed after the partition of Alexander's empire among the Diadochi'. This, however, is not an absolutely necessary inference.

Assyria and Egypt were, after all, the classic foes of Israel, and their ultimate downfall bulks very largely in Old Testament prophecies of the Final Age, while the term 'Kittians' came in time to lose any precise signification and to be used—like 'Hun' or 'Tartar'—to denote 'barbarians' in general. Hence, the reference to 'Kittians' of Assyria and Egypt may have been made, like that to Moabites, Edomites, Ammonites, and Philistines [i.1-2], merely out of deference to tradition.

2. Of different structure but of the same purport is the text here entitled The Rout of Belial. Put together out of thirty fragments (only fourteen of which, however, are sufficiently preserved to permit of translation), this is a catena, or chain, of Scriptural passages which, on an eschatological interpretation, can be taken to predict the ultimate discomfiture of the partisans of Belial (the 'sons of darkness') who are currently harassing and assailing the 'sons of light'.

The author draws especially on verses of Psalms 11-17 and on the twentieth chapter of the Book of Ezekiel. At certain points his interpretation depends not only on an over-all principle of eschatological exegesis but also, more specifically, on reading secondary meanings into the Biblical texts by means of ingenious but fanciful play on words. The picture of the final struggle seems to reflect in some measure the influence of Iranian ideas which percolated into Jewish circles during the periods of Persian and subsequent Graeco-Roman domination.

3. A pendant to these longer texts is the fragment which I have named The Coming Doom. This is best understood as part of a sermon or discourse (Hebrew, derashah) based on a string of similes relating to the Last Days.

~~ II ~~

Balancing the punishment of the unrighteous is the redemption of the faithful and the restoration of Israel. It is, however, not merely by the defeat of His enemies that the Kingdom of God will be re-established on earth. This will depend also on the repentance of his sinful people and its return to observance of the Law and fulfilment of the obligations of the Covenant. The call to such change of heart ('Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand') forms the subject of the exhortation here entitled Weal and Woe. As in the Biblical prophets and in such later writings as the Book of Enoch, the doom of the wicked and the triumph of the righteous are here described side by side.

~~ III ~~

1. The Golden Age which will follow these periods of visitation, trial, and testing is graphically portrayed in the text which I have called The Last Jubilee. Preserved only in a single copy, this is best regarded as a series of notes for a sermon, and was evidently compiled by one of those official 'expositors' mentioned expressly both in the Manual of Discipline and in the 'Zadokite' Document as well as in Josephus' accounts of the Essenes. (1)

The purpose of the text is to depict the Golden Age as the fulfilment, in eschatological terms, of the Law of the Jubilee, in the twenty-fifth chapter of the Book of Leviticus. In a manner familiar from rabbinic literature, the expositor buttresses his interpretation by correlating crucial terms in the commandment with other passages of Scripture, in which they are used in a different and wider sense; and he enhances the cumulative effect of these comparisons by drawing alike on the Law, the Prophets, and the Holy Writings.

The basis of his exegesis, however, is sometimes allusive rather than explicit, dependent on latent suggestion and association, which was evidently intended to be spelled out in the oral discourse. For the modern reader, therefore, the bare skeleton has, as it were, to be fleshed out, and this I have here attempted to do by having the text set in small capitals and the necessary amplifications in roman type and by explaining them in more detail in the accompanying notes.

It cannot be guaranteed, of course—particularly since the manuscript is damaged and incomplete—that the resultant reconstruction of the sermon is one hundred percent certain, but a purely mechanical rendering of what are, after all, mere mnemonic jottings would leave the text a virtual torso, and I have been moved by a desire to help return the forgotten author to his patrimony.

A word should be added about the role played in our text by Melchizedek, the ancient 'king of Shalem and priest of God Most High', who is said, in Gen. 14.18-20, to have conferred upon Abraham (and, by implication, upon Abraham's descendants) the blessing of that deity. Melchizedek is introduced into our sermon as the future savior-king who will bring peace and salvation to the faithful and condign punishment to the wicked and who will also mediate divine forgiveness for the former on the Final Day of Atonement.

The reason why he is chosen for this role is really very simple. First: the eschatological doctrines of the Dead Sea Scriptures derive, in large measure, from Iranian lore which, during the period of Persian domination, the Jews picked up on a popular level. (2) A major feature of that lore was the ultimate triumph of Right (Asha) over Perversity (Druj). Accordingly, throughout the Scrolls, great stress is placed on Righteousness (sedeq); the Brotherhood styles itself 'the sons [or, elect] of righteousness', (3) and its opponents those 'of perversity' ('awel) (4)—corresponding to the Iranian ashovano and dregvato—and its spiritual mentor, the man who expounds the Torah aright, is 'the teacher of righteousness'. (5)

Now, since the name Melchizedek lends itself readily to the interpretation 'king of righteousness' (melech sedeq), (6) and since—through a mistaken interpretation of Psalm 110.4 (Thou art a priest for ever, after the order of Melchizedek)—he himself, rather than the priesthood which he served, was popularly deemed to be eternal, he becomes at once an appropriate candidate for the role of the future messianic king who will establish the dominion of righteousness on earth. (7) Moreover, this notion could draw also on the widespread myth of the ancient hero redivivus, who would reappear eventually to save his people (8)—a myth associated in sundry passages of the Old Testament with David. (9)

Second: Melchizedek's title 'king of Shalem' lends itself, with equal facility, to a fanciful association with the Hebrew words, shalom, 'peace', (10) and shallem, 'requite', so that he can at once be identified with the promised redeemer who will bring both peace to the faithful and requital to the wicked.

Third: Melchizedek combines the functions of king and priest, and therefore serves fittingly as a prefiguration of the future Messiah who will not only re-establish the dominion of God over that of Belial, but also mediate forgiveness for the faithful on the Final Day of Atonement, as did the high priest on the annual holy day (cf. Lev. 16.30-33). (11)

It has been suggested that the title, melech shalem, 'king of Shalem', in Gen. 14.18, is an historicization on the part of the Biblical writer (or his source) of an original mal'ach shalom, 'angel of peace', and that the role assigned to Melchizedek in our sermon harks back to that earlier myth. (12) It has been suggested also that he is here regarded as an hypostasis of God Himself. In regard to such theories, however, we may perhaps be content, as was that ancient worthy himself, with but a tenth part.

Although, by virtue especially of his assumed immortality, Melchizedek did indeed become the subject of divers legends in both Jewish and Christian lore, (13) it is not necessary to go beyond the simple midrashic interpretation of Scripture summarized above in order to account for his messianic role in our text. (14)

2. The text entitled The New Covenant is quite obviously part of a homiletic exposition of the famous prophecy in Jer. 31.31-33: 'Behold, days are coming' saith the Lord, 'when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. ... I will put my Law in their inward parts, and in their heart will I write it; and will be their God, and they will be My people.'

3. The war against Gog and Magog would mark the end of the present Era of Wickedness, but not the end of the world. It would last forty years-the period of so-called 'Messianic travail', and would pave the way for the 'Era of (Divine) Favor'. This too needed its blueprint, and a small portion of that blueprint is preserved in what has generally been called The Two-Column Fragment.

This tantalizing document, found in the same cave as the main scrolls, is really a Manual of Discipline for the future Restored Congregation of Israel. It has excited es-pecial interest because it describes the protocol for a ban-quet attended by 'the Messiah'. This has led to the belief that it deals with the Messianic Banquet (on the flesh Leviathan) often described in rabbinic literature, and also that it prefigures, albeit in a limited degree, the Christian Eucharist.

The plain fact is, however, that the term 'Messiah'—or, more specifically, 'Messiah of Israel'—means no more than 'the duly anointed king'. This text, as we have said, is concerned with the administration of the future ideal community of Israel. After describing the rules that are to obtain regarding education, eligibility for public office, and military service, the author takes up the question of rank and precedence.

The high priest, he affirms, is to occupy the supreme position and to be superior to any layman. He then gives a pertinent illustration. If, he says, the anointed king himself (expressly described as 'the Messiah [anointed] of Israel', in implied contrast with the Messiah of Aaron', i.e., the high priest) should attend a communal banquet, the high priest is nevertheless to be seated first, and it is to be the high priest's duty and privilege to pronounce the Grace before Meals. Moreover, in order to make the point even clearer, our author lays it down explicitly that this rule is to be observed even at smaller gatherings, when there may be no more than ten persons present—the minimum religious quorum [minyan] in traditional Jewish law!

The interpretation of this document as referring to a 'Lord's Supper' has been bolstered by a daring but unfortunate conjecture, whereby a faint and damaged passage of the text is made to read: 'When God begets the Messiah, he [i.e., the Messiah] is to enter with them'. It may therefore be pointed out that the crucial word 'God' is here simply an arbitrary restoration, and that the word read as 'begets' (viz. YW[LI]D) is more probably to be read 'is present' (viz. YW[']D), while that rendered 'he is to enter' means properly 'he is to come' and belongs to the next sentence. What is actually said, therefore, is that 'if the anointed (king, i.e., [hmlk] hmsih) happens to be present (yw[']d) with them, the priest, as head of the entire Congregation of Israel is (nevertheless) to come ... and take his seat (first)'. (15)

~ IV ~~

Lastly come four texts attesting the 'messianic' expectations of the men who wrote the Scrolls and of the community at Qumran.

1. The first contains extracts (pitifully short, to be sure) from commentaries on relevant verses from the Last Blessing of Jacob (Gen. 49) and from the promise of God to David in the Book of Samuel.

2. The second is a catena of five Scriptural passages attesting the advent of the Future Prophet and the Anointed King and the final discomfiture of the impious. The first four are taken from the Pentateuch, and include an excerpt from the oracles of Balaam. The fifth is an interpretation of a verse from the Book of Joshua. An interesting feature of this document (not noticed by the original editor) is that precisely the same passages of the Pentateuch are used by the Samaritans as the stock testimonial to the coming of the Taheb, or future 'Restorer'. (16)

They evidently constituted a standard set of such quotations, of the type that scholars have long supposed to have been in the hands of New Testament writers when they cited passages of the Hebrew Bible supposedly confirmed by incidents in the life and career of Jesus. The interest of this text is further enhanced by the comment on the passage from Joshua, for the curse which is there invoked upon re-builders of the city of Jericho is applied to two contemporaries, evidently brothers, who have been building a wall and towers in Jerusalem in order to rum it into a 'stronghold of wickedness' and who have also been perpetrating disgraceful excesses in Israel and Judah.

Unfortunately, the identity of these impious men cannot yet be determined with certainty; one may think, perhaps, of Aristobulus II and Hyrcanus II (as suggested by Allegro) or, alternatively, even of Herod and Phasael. In any case, however, we have in this allusion a highly important piece of evidence for the eventual definitive dating of the Scrolls.

3. The third, conventionally styled A Messianic Florl-legium, is an exposition, in similar vein, of God's promise to Israel, in II Sam. 7.10-14, concerning the building of the Temple and the emergence of a scion of David, coupled with a warning against false teachers, fancifully derive from the words of Psalm 1.1, and a prediction of the at-tacks by heathen kings, deduced from Psalm 2.1-2.

4. The same theme is treated also, but in more discursive fashion, in the little piece which I have entitled The Wondrous Child.

This text, composed in Aramaic, is something of a teaser. It has been put together out of no less than twelve small fragments, which furnish the remains of two columns of writing. (17) Both the beginning and the end are missing; few lines or phrases are completely preserved; one of the 'joins' is doubtful; and several words are indistinct. The script seemingly indicates that the manuscript was penned at some time between about 30 B.C. and the collapse of the Qumran commune in A.D. 68, but it may, of course, have been copied from an older original.

All of this sounds, to be sure, pretty discouraging. Nevertheless the general drift of the text can still be made out It is a prediction (one scholar has called it a horoscope) (18) of the birth of a Wondrous Child, characterized as 'the chosen of God' and of events which will ensue thereafter. The child will bear (like Krishna and Buddha) (19) special marks on his body, and will be distinguished by precocious wisdom and intelligence. He will be able to probe the secrets of all living creatures, and no schemes against him will succeed.

The problem is to identify this infant prodigy. According to the first editor of the text, (20) he is the Messiah-a view based mainly on the fact that in certain passages of the Book of Enoch the future savior and judge is indeed described as 'God's elect'. (21) To this, however, the objection has been raised that the passages in question come from later additions to the original Book of Enoch, apparently unknown to the men of Qumran since they do not appear among the portions of that book which have been discovered there.

Moreover, it is urged, the title 'chosen of God' was not applied specifically to the Messiah—that is, to the salvific scion of David or Aaron—before the New Testament, however much such a general figure of myth may have existed previously. It has therefore been suggested that the Child is really Noah, whose birth was indeed believed in legend (e.g., in the Qumran Memoirs of the Patriarchs) to have been attended with miraculous signs, the references to impending general destruction and to 'waters' (ii.14) then being to the Flood rather than to events in the Last Days. (22)

There is at present no way of settling the question, and it should be borne in mind in any case that the myth of the Wondrous Child who will inaugurate a new age has a long history behind it, (23) so that this may be simply a Jewish adaptation of what was at the time a more widespread popular belief. We may recall, for instance, its Roman counterpart in the famous Fourth Eclogue of Vergil (virtually contemporary with our manuscript), (24) as well as the so-called Priene Inscription containing a decree promulgated in cities of Asia Minor in 9 B.C., which hails Augustus as the Savior who 'will end all strife and restore the world-order', and which signalizes his birthday as 'the beginning of all things'. (25)

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Notes

1. Manual, vi.6; 'Zadokite' Document, vi.7; vii.18; Florilegium, i.11; Josephus, Bellum Judaicum, VHI.6.19; Ant., XIII.5.9.

2. See above, General Introduction, pp. 24ff.

3. Manual, i.20, 22; ix.14; Hymns iii.13.

4. Manual, iii.21. Cf. also: lb., iv.23, 24; v.2, 10; viii.13 ix.17; Hymns v.8. Cf. also: Hymns xi.22; xv.15, 25, etc.

5. HabC, i.13; v.10; vii.4; viii.3, etc.; Ps. 37C ii.15; 'Zadokite' Document, i.11; vi.11; xx.32.

6. Cf. Heb. 7.2.

7. Righteousness is especially associated with the eschatological king in several passages of the Old Testament e.g., Isa. 11.5; 16.5; Hos. 10.12; Pss. 96.1; 98.9; and with the Final Days in general, e.g., Isa. 51.5; 62.2 Jer. 33.16.

8. Standard examples are Arthur of Britain, Frederick Barbarossa; cf. Stith Thompson, Motif-Index of Folk Literature, A 530; T. H. Gaster, Myth, Legend, and Custom in the Old Testament (1969), §205a. I

9. Jer. 34.23-24; Ezek. 37.24; Hos. 3.5. Cf. H. Schmidt, Der Mythos vom wiederkehrenden Konig im Alten Testament (1925). Cf. also TJ. Ber. 5a.

10. Cf. Heb. 7.2.

11. For the combination of royal and priestly factors in the future Messiah (as in Christ), cf. 'Zadokite' Docu-ment, xix.10f.; xx.l; xii.23; John 6.14-15.

12. J. T. Milik, in Journal of Jewish Studies 23 (1972) 137.

13. For a resume of these legends, cf. J. A. Fabricius Codex Pseudepigrapha Veteris Testamenti (1722), 311ff.; M. R. James, The Lost Apocrypha of the Old Testament (1920), pp. 17ff.; L. Ginzberg, Legends of the Jews (1909ff.), v.226; vi.325.

14. Nor is it really pertinent to adduce the reference to him in the Epistle to the Hebrews (chs. 5, 7) for there he is cited in a somewhat different context, namely, to furnish a precedent justifying the claim that Jesus is a spiritual high priest, superseding the levitical order, although not, in fact, a descendant of Aaron.

15. Some of the scholars working directly on the scrolls claim that infra-red photographs definitely establish the reading YWLID. I should like to see the photographs.

16. See J. A. Montgomery, The Samaritans (1907), pp. 247f.; M. Gaster, The Samaritans (1925), p. 92; id., Samaritan Eschatology (1932), pp. 229f.

17. There is also a tiny scrap containing only five legible, but unintelligible letters.

18. J. Carmignac, 'Les horoscopes de Qumran', in Revue Biblique 18 (1965), 199-217. However, J. A. Fitz-myer has pertinently observed (in Catholic Biblical Quarterly 27 [1965], 348-72) that the text nowhere mentions stars or signs of the zodiac!

19. Krishna bore the sign of Srivatsa, and Buddha the well-known thirty-two marks.

20. J. Starcky, 'Un texte messianique de la grotte 4 de Qumran', in Memorial du cinquantenaire de I'Ecole des langues orientales anciennes de I'lnstitut Catho-lique de Paris (1964), 51-66.

21. Cp. Enoch 45.3; 51.3, 5; 61.4, 8; 62.1.

22. J. A. Fitzmyer, op. cit. (reprinted in his Essays on the Semitic Background of the New Testament [SBL, Sources for Biblical Study, 5] (1974), pp. 127-60). This is the most thoroughgoing treatment of the text to date, though the author's suggestion that the Wondrous Child is Noah is open to debate, as he himself frankly concedes.

23. See on this especially, E. Norden, Die Geburt des Kindes (1924).

24. See: R. S. Conway, Virgil's Messianic Eclogue (1907); J. Carcopino, Virgile et Ie mystere de la Verne eclogue (1943).

25. See: F. H. Gaetringen, Inschriften von Priene (1906) No. 105; translated in F. C. Grant, Ancient Roman Religion (1957), pp. 173-74; cp. also: A. Harnack Reden und Aufsatze (2) (1906), i.301; H. Lietzmann Der Weltheiland (1909), pp. 14f.; O. S. Rankin, The Origins of the Festival of Hanukkah (1930), p. 243 This concept has been invoked by many scholars to explain the Immanuel and related prophecies in Isaiah chs. 7 and 9; cp. T. H. Gaster, Myth, Legend, and Custom in the Old Testament (1969), §176.

The War Of The Sons Of Light And The Sons Of Darkness

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A (1) - [Prologue]

(i, 1-17)

. . . . .

The first engagement of the Sons of Light against the Sons of Darkness-that is, against the army of Belial—shall be an attack on the troop of Edom, Moab, the Ammonites and the Philistine area and upon that of the Kittians of Assyria, and of those violators of the Covenant who give them aid. When the Sons of Light who are now in exile return from the 'desert of the nations' to pitch camp in the desert of Jerusalem, the children of Levi, Judah and Benjamin, who are now among those exiles, shall wage war against these peoples—that is, against each and every one of their troops.

After that battle they shall advance upon the [king of] the Kittians of Egypt. In due time, he will sally forth in high fury to wage war against the kings of the north, being minded in his anger to destroy his enemies and cut down their power. (2) This, however, will be the time of salvation for the people of God, the critical moment when those that have cast their lot with Him will come to dominion, whereas those that have cast it with Belial shall be doomed to eternal extinction. [Great] havoc shall then beset the descendants of Japheth: (3) Assyria shall fall, with none to help her, and the dominion of the Kittians shall depart. Wickedness will thus be humbled and left without remnant, and no survivor shall remain of the Sons of Darkness.

[Streaks of lightn]ing will flash from one end of the world to the other, growing ever brighter until the era of darkness is brought utterly to an end. (4) Then, in the era of God, His exalted grandeur will give light for [evermore,] (5) shedding on all the Sons of Light peace and blessing, gladness and length of days.

On the day the Kittians fall, there shall be mighty combat and carnage in the presence of the God of Israel, for that is the day which He appointed of old for the final battle against the Sons of Darkness. Thereon the company of the divine and the congregation of the human shall engage side by side in combat and carnage, the Sons of Light doing battle against the Sons of Darkness with a show of godlike might, amid uproarious tumult, amid the war-cries of gods and men, in a veritable day of havoc. It will be, indeed, a 'time of [ ] tribulation' (6) for 'the people redeemed of God', but, unlike all their previous tribulations, this one will come to a speedy end in a redemption which shall last for ever.

When they engage the Kittians, [amid all the combat and car]nage of battle, the Sons of Light shall have luck three times in discomfiting the forces of wickedness; but three times the host of Belial shall brace themselves to turn back the tide. At this, the squadrons of the infantry shall become faint-hearted, but the power of God shall strengthen their hearts, and on the seventh occasion the great hand of God shall finally subdue [the army of Belial. For will He summon] all the angels of His dominion and all the humans [that are bound to His communion] [ ] [and amid] the Holy Beings He Himself will appear (*) to give aid [ ], [and He will make] the truth [to shine forth,] bringing doom upon the Sons of Darkness [ ] [and] they shall surrender. ...

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(*) Restored after Zech. 14:3, 5: Then shall the Lord go forth and fight against those nations, as when He fighteth in a day of battle ... And the Lord my God shall come, and all the Holy Ones with Him (LXX text)'.

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[Of religious offices during wartime]

(ii, 1-6)

[ ] fathers of the community, fifty-two in number. (7) After the high priest and his deputy they shall appoint an order of major priests, twelve in number, to serve constantly before God. Furthermore, twenty-six major officials duly assigned to service shall serve in their appointed offices; (8) and after them there shall be twelve major levites, one for each tribe, to serve constantly. The major officials charged with service shall serve in rotation, but subordinate to them shall be the chiefs of the tribes and the fathers of the community stationed constantly at the gates of the sanctuary.

The major officials assigned to service shall take up then-positions, in discharge of their duties, on the festivals, new moons, sabbaths or weekdays duly assigned to them. They shall be fifty years of age and upwards. (9) Their function shall be to attend to the burnt-offerings and the sacrifices, to set out the incense of 'pleasant savor' for God's acceptance, to perform rites of atonement in behalf of all His congregation, and constantly to clear away the fat ashes which lie before Him on the 'table of glory'.

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[Of recruitment]

(ii, 6-9)

All of these dispositions, however, are to apply only to the year of release. For the remaining thirty-three years of the War, (10) the dignitaries appointed to the Assembly and all the chiefs of families in the community are to select the soldiers for service in the various foreign countries. They are to draft them annually out of all the tribes of Israel in accordance with the established conventions of warfare. (11) Only in the year of release is there to be no draft, for that is a year of sabbatical rest for Israel.

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[Of the sequence of campaigns]

(ii, 9-14)

Of the thirty-five working years, the first six are to be devoted to mobilization, the entire community collectively taking part in it During the remaining twenty-nine years, the war is to be conducted in a series of separate campaigns. In the first year, they are to fight in Mesopotamia; in the second, against the Lydians; in the third, against the rest of the Syrians, against Uz, Hul, Togar and Masha, (12) which are across the Euphrates; in the fourth and fifth, against Arpachshad; (13) in the sixth and seventh, against all the Assyrians, Persians and Easterners as far as the Great Desert; in the eighth, against the Elamites; in the ninth, against the descendants of Ishmael and Keturah. (14) For the next ten years the campaign shall be concentrated against all the Hamites, (15) wherever they dwell; and for the remaining decade against all the [ ] throughout their habitations.

* * *

Concerning the Battle Dispositions and the Trumpets of Assembly at the time when the gates of war are opened for the infantry to go forth, and concerning the trumpets for signaling the first onslaught, the ambush, the pursuit after the defeat of the enemy, and the recall

(iii, 1-11)

On the trumpets of assembly for the entire community, they shall write: The Enlisted of God. (16)

On the trumpets of assembly for officers, they shall write: The Princes of God.

On the trumpets of enrollment they shall write: The Rank of God.

On the trumpets of the dignitaries they shall write: The Heads of the Families of the Community.

When they assemble at the general meeting-house, the shall write: Enactments (17) of God for the Sacred Council.

On the trumpets of the camps they shall write: The peace of God be in the camps of His saints.

On the trumpets of advance they shall write: The Power of God is able to scatter the enemy and to put to flight all who hate righteousness. And he recompenses the loyalty [of them that love God, but requites] (18)them that hate Him.

On the trumpets for marshalling the battle they shall write: The marshalled squadrons of God are able to wreak His angry vengeance upon all the Sons of Darkness.

On the trumpets of assembly for the infantry, when the gates of war are opened for them to go out to the enemy line, they shall write: A reminder (19) of the vengeance to be exacted in the Era of God.

On the trumpets of carnage (20) they shall write: The force of God's power in battle is able to fell all the perfidious as slain men.

On the trumpets of ambush they shall write: The hidden powers (21) of God are able to destroy wickedness.

On the trumpets of pursuit they shall write: God has smitten all the children of Darkness. He will not turn back His anger until He has consumed them.

And when they return from the battle to rejoin the ranks they shall write on the trumpets of recall: God hath taken back (gathered hi). (22)

And on the trumpets which signal the route of return from the war against the enemy and the way back to the community in Jerusalem, they shall write: Joy of God at the return of peace. (†) (23)

----

[†] Or, 'at a safe return'.

----

This is the order
of the standards for the entire community
when they are enrolled

(iii.12-iv, 2)

On the great standard which precedes the entire army [lit. 'people'] they are to write People of God together with the names Aaron and Israel and those of the twelve tribes of Israel according to their pedigrees.

On the standard of the camp commanders of the three tribes (of Levi, Judah and Benjamin) they are to write [ ].

On the standard of each separate tribe they are to write: Banner of God, together with the name of the chieftain of the [ ], the name of the chieftain of the ten thou-sand and those of the [ ].

On the standard of Merari (24) they are to write: Offering unto God, (25) together with the names of the chiefs of the Merarites and those of the commanders of its thousands.

On the standard of the thousand they are to write: God's anger is vented (26) in fury against Belial and against all that cast their lot with him, that they have no remnant; together with the name of the commander of the thousand and of its hundreds.

On the standard of the hundred they shall write: From God (27) comes the power of battle against all sinful flesh, together with the names of the commander of the hundred and of its tens.

On the standard of fifty they shall write: Finished is the stand of the froward through the mighty acts of God, (28) together with the names of the commanders of the fifty and of its tens.

And on the standard of ten they shall write: Paeans of God on the ten-stringed harp, together with the names of the commander of the ten, and of the nine men under his command.

When they go out to battle, they shall write upon their several standards: Truth of God, Righteousness of God, Glory of God, Justice of God, and thereafter the specific name of each division. And when they draw near the bat-tie, they shall write upon their standards: Right Hand of God, Battle-Array of God, Tumult of God, Slain of God, and thereafter their specific names. (29)

And when they come back from the battle, they shall write upon their standards: Grandeur of God, Greatness of God, Praises of God, Glory of God, together with their specific names.

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Order Of The Standards Of The Community

When they go out to battle, they shall write on the first standard: Community of God; on the second, Camps of God; on the third, Tribes of God; on the fourth, Families of God; on the fifth, Squadrons of God; on the sixth, Assembly of God; on the seventh, Recruits of God; on the eighth, Armies of God; and they shall write also the specific names, with all their ranks.

And when they draw near to the battle, they shall write upon their standards: War of God, Vengeance of God, Feud of God, Requital of God; Strength of God; Recompense of God; Might of God; Annihilation by God of all vain nations; together with all their specific names.

And when they return from the battle, they shall write on their standards: Salvation of God, Triumph of God, Help of God, Support of God, Praise of God, Thanksgiving to God, Acclaim of God, Peace of God.

(A fragmentary passage follows, giving the measurements of the standards.)

[ .] On the [standard?] of the leader of the entire community they are to write his name and the names of Israel and Levi and Aaron, and the name of the twelve tribes of Israel according to their pedigrees, and the names of the twelve commanders of those tribes.

Order of deploying the
battle-squadrons when their full
force is mustered

(iv.3-vi, 6)

To form a complete front. The line is to consist of a thousand men. Each front-line is to be seven deep, one man standing behind the other. All of them are to hold shields of polished bronze, resembling mirrors. These shields are to be bordered by a wreath-like rim wrought artistically by a skilled smith out of [ ] (30) gold, silver, bronze, and precious stones, blended in a variegated arrangement as on a woman's breastplate.

Each shield is to be two and one half cubits long and two and one half cubits wide. The men are to hold in their hands a spear and a lance. The length of the spear is to be seven cubits, of which one half-cubit is to consist of the blade and the point (There follows a highly technical description of the spears. Since, however, we do not yet know the precise meaning of many of the terms employed, it is impossible to translate the passage with confidence.)

* * *

[ ] seven times and then return to their positions. After them three squadrons of the infantry shall go forth and take up positions between the lines. The first squadron shall fling seven war-darts into the enemy line. On the blade of each dart they shall write: The flash of the spear (31) evinces the Power of God. And on the second javelin they shall write: Spurtings (32) of blood, causing men to fall slain through the anger of God. And on the third dart they shall write: Flame of the sword devouring the evil-doing slain by the judgment of God. They shall hurl such darts seven times in all, and then return to their positions.

After them shall go forth the two other squadrons of the infantry and take up positions between the two lines. The one shall hold spear and shield and the other spear and lance, to fell the slain in the judgment of God and to subdue the enemy line by the might of God, to the end that every vain nation may reap the fruit of its evil. Then shall the sovereignty belong to the God of Israel, and He will evince His power among the sacred hosts (33) of His people.

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[Of The Cavalry]

(vi, 7-17)

The seven battle lines shall be flanked in turn, on the left and on the right, by cavalry. Each line shall be accompanied by two hundred light horsemen, so that there will be in all seven hundred of the latter on the one side and seven hundred on the other.

These horsemen shall occupy a similar position in the camp, though in that case they shall be disposed on all (four) sides.

There shall be four thousand and six hundred of them, all told. In addition, there shall be fourteen hundred heavy horse accompanying the general ranks—fifty for each line of troops. (34) The light and heavy horse that accompany the troops shall therefore amount in all to six thousand.

All the cavalry that go out to battle with the infantry shall consist of stallions swift of foot, non-biters, (35) long in the wind, full-grown and mature, trained for battle and used to hearing all kinds of sounds and facing all kinds of sights. Their riders shall be stout-hearted warriors, trained in horsemanship; and their ages shall range between thirty and forty-five. (36) Those, however, who are assigned to line duty shall be from forty to fifty years old. They shall [be equipped with] [ ] and helmets and greaves, and shall hold in their hands round shields and spears [ ], long [ ] and a bow and arrows and war-darts. And all of them shall be primed in [ ]. [It shall be their duty to] [ ] and to shed the blood of those who are destined to be slain in consequence of their guilt.

* * *

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[Of Age And Health Requirements]

(vii, 1-7)

The line troops are to be forty to fifty years of age. (37) Those who arrange the camps are to be from fifty to sixty. (38) The officers too are to be from forty to fifty years of age; and all who strip the dead and collect the spoil and clean up the terrain and keep the weapons and prepare the food are to be between twenty-five and thirty. No toddling child or woman is to enter their camps from the moment they leave Jerusalem to go to war until they return; neither is anyone that is lame or blind or halt, or that has a long-standing blemish in his flesh or that is afflicted with any manner of bodily contagion, to go with them to war.

All of them are to be men willing to face the hazards of battle, unimpaired in spirit and flesh and ready for the day of vengeance. Moreover, any man who is not yet cleansed from a bodily discharge on the day of battle is not to go down with them; for holy angels march with their hosts.

A distance of about two thousand cubits is to be set in every case between the camp and the latrine, and no un-cleanliness is ever to be in evidence in the precincts of the camp.

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[Of The Battle Signals]

(vii, 8-ix, 9)

When the lines of battle are drawn up to face the foe, line in front of line, then out of the center gap in the ranks (39) there shall come into the lines seven priests of the descendants of Aaron, clothed in robes of white silk, wearing the linen tunic and the linen breeches, gut with the linen girdle of silk twined artistically with blue and purple and deep scarlet thread, after the model of broidery, and with mitred turbans on their heads—garments of war which they are not to bring into the sanctuary.

The one priest shall walk about before all the troops of the line to encourage them in the battle, while in the hands of the other six shall be the trumpets for calling to arms, and the trum-pets for sounding the charge, and the trumpets for recall And when these priests go out between the lines, seven levites shall go out with them, and in their hands shall be seven trumpets made out of rams' horns. And three officers selected from the levites shall walk ahead of these priests and levites.

And the priests shall sound a blast on the two [or: two of the] trumpets used for call[ing to arms]. [ ] fifty shield-men,40 and fifty infantrymen shall go out from the one gap, [and fifty from the other,] and the levitical officers [shall go out with them.] And they shall go out with every line in this manner. [ ]. The men of the infantry shall go out from the gaps and [take up position between the two [lines.]

* * *

The trumpets shall keep sounding for the slingers until they have hurled a full seven times. Then the priests shall blow the recall for them, and they shall return (lit. come) to the first line to take their stand in their assigned position. Thereupon the priests shall sound a blast on the trumpets of assembly, and the squadron of infantry shall go forth from the gaps and take up position between the lines, and on their flanks shall be horsemen to the right and to the left.

The priests shall then sound upon the trumpets a quavering (?) blast for the drawing up of the line of the battle. The columns shall disperse to their several ranks, each to his assigned position. And when they have taken up position in three lines, the priests shall sound a second blast—a low, subdued note for advance to the enemy line. Thereupon they are to grasp their weapons. Then the priests are to sound blasts on the six trumpets used for rousing to the slaughter—a sharp insistent note for directing the battle. And the levites and all the people with rams' horns are to sound a single blast—a great war-like trump to melt the heart of the enemy.

At the sound of that blast, the war-darts are to issue forth to fell the slain. Then they are to accelerate the notes of the rams' horns, and the priests are to blow upon the trumpets a sharp, insistent sound to direct the wings of the battle, until they have hurled their darts into the enemy line seven tunes. Thereupon the priests are to sound upon the trumpets the signal of recall—a low, quavering (?) subdued note.

In such fashion are the priests to blow the signals for the three squadrons. And when the first squadron begins to hurl its darts, the [priests] are to blow [ ] [on the trump]et a great blast to direct the bat[tle] [ ]; the priests are to sound a blast for them on the trumpets [ ] their assigned positions in the ranks [ ], and [ ] shall take up position.

* * *

[ ] they shall engage in felling the slain. And all the people shall silence their war-cries, while the priests Keep blowing the trumpets for carnage, to direct the battle, until the enemy are discomfited and turn tail. The priests shall go on blowing to direct the battle, and when the enemy are being discomfited before them, the priests shall sound on the trumpets of assembly, and all the infantry troops stationed between the front lines shall go out to them, and six squadrons shall take up positions.

The force of the total squadrons then entering the combat shall consist of seven lines comprising in all twenty-eight thousand troops, and the cavalry shall number six thousand. All of these shall pursue the enemy to annihilate him in the bat-tie of God unto his eternal extinction. And the priests shall blow for them on the trumpets of pursuit, and they shall fall upon the enemy to pursue him unto destruction. And the horsemen shall keep chasing them back into the thick of the battle until utter destruction is achieved.

And while the enemy are falling slain, the priests shall go sounding the signals from a distance; they shall not go into the midst of the slain lest they be defiled by their impure blood; for the priests are holy and they are not to defile the oil of then: priestly anointment with the blood of vain heathen.

Order Of Disposing The Troops In Various Battle-Formations.- (42)

(a) in a straight line (43) flanked by so-called '(human) towers', (44)
(b) in a curved line resembling the lower half of a circle, (45) similarly protected;
(c) in a curved line resembling the upper half of a circle, (46) similarly protected;
(d) in a slight curve with center foremost, protected by spearhead columns advancing from the flanks; (47)
(e) in a slight curve with ends foremost, protected by wings (of cavalry) (48) advancing on both flanks, in order to strike terror in the enemy.

(ix, 10-15)

(In all such cases,) the shields of the men constituting the '(human) towers' are to be three cubits long, and their spears eight cubits. The 'tower' is to consist of two side lines each made up of a hundred men carrying shields, and of a front line similarly composed. It is to be a three-sided affair, and thus to comprise three hundred shields in all. It is to have two gaps, one on the [right and] one on the left. All of the shields of the 'towers' are to bear inscriptions. Those of the first 'tower' are to carry the legend, MICHAEL; [those of the second, GABRIEL; those of the third,] SARIEL; and those of the fourth, RAPHAEL (49)...

* * *

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[Of The Exhortation Of The Troops]

(x, 1-xii, 18)

[ ] our (50) camp, and to guard ourselves from all unclean things, and Thou art He who told us aforetime that Thou wouldst be in our midst, a great and awful God, to make spoil of our enemies before us. Thou also art He who taught us from of old for all our generations saying: When ye draw near unto the battle, the priest is to stand and speak to the people saying: 'Hear, O Israel, ye are drawing near this day unto battle against your enemies.

Fear not, neither let your hearts grow soft, neither be dismayed nor affrighted before them, for your God is marching with you to do battle for you against your foemen to the end that He may save you'. (51)

Then shall the officers thus address all that are ready for the battle, stout-hearted men, to encourage [them] with the power of God and to restore all whose hearts melt and to encourage altogether all the soldiers of the army: 'To this didst Thou refer when Thou spakest through Moses saying: "When thou goest to war in your land against a foeman that assails you, sound ye the trumpets [Num. 10.9].

Then shall ye be called to remembrance before your God and ye shall be saved from your enemies." Who is like Thee, O God of Israel, in heaven or on earth, that can do the like of Thy great deeds and of Thy mighty power? And who is like Thy people Israel whom Thou didst choose for Thyself out of all the nations of the lands, a people of men hallowed by the covenant and schooled in the Law, men enlightened with understanding], men who [ ], who heard the glorious voice and saw the holy angels, men whose ears are opened and who hear deep things. [Thou art He who ordained] the outspreading of the heavens; the host of the luminaries; the several duties of spirits and the spheres of dominion of holy beings; the treasuries of ha[il and snow; and the balance of] the clouds.

Thou art He who created the earth and the rules whereby parts thereof are assigned to desert and wasteland likewise all that issues from it and all the fruits of it [yield]; the bounds of the seas also and the reservoirs of the rivers; the cleavage of the deeps; all manner of beasts and fowl; the fabric of man and his offspring; the confu-sion of tongues and division of peoples; the settlements of [all] the families [of men], and the apportionment of the earth as inheritances [among them].

'[Thou art He who decreed the day of sabbath rest and the holy festivals, and the turning-points of the years (52) and [all] the appointed seasons. [ ].

'These things have we come to know through Thine understanding which [Thou hast planted within us].

'[Thou hast bent] Thine [ear] to our cry; for [ ]

* * *

'[To none] but Thee belong the [issues of] war, and it is by the strength of Thy hand that their corpses have been flung forth, with none to bury them.

'Goliath the Gittite, a man of mighty strength, didst Thou deliver into the hand of thy servant David, because David trusted in Thy great name and not in sword or spear. (53) For Thine is the battle. The Philistines also didst Thou humble time after time by Thy holy name; and Thou didst also deliver us many times through the hands of our kings by virtue of Thy mercies and not of our deeds which we did evilly commit, nor of our acts of transgression.

'Thine is the battle; from Thee comes the power; and it is not ours. It is not our strength nor the might of our hands that achieveth this valor, but it cometh through Thy strength and through Thy great valorous might. So didst Thou tell us of old, saying: "There shall step a star out of Jacob; there shall rise a rod out of Israel, and it shall smite the brow of Moab and undermine all the children of pride. And it shall proceed from Jacob and destroy every remnant from the city; and the enemy shall be dispossessed, but Israel shall triumph" [Num. 24.17-19].

Moreover, by the hands of Thine anointed, the men who had vision of things foreordained, Thou hast related unto us the warlike triumphs of Thy hand—how Thou hast waged battle against our foes and caused the troops of Belial—the seven vain nations (54)—to fall into the hands of the pauper folk whom Thou didst redeem by wondrous might [and set] in [safe]ty and peace.

'Now is the heart that was melting turned to a Wellspring of hope. Thou hast done unto these as Thou didst unto Pharaoh and the captains of his chariots at the Red Sea. The base (55) of spirit wilt Thou burn up like a flaming brand in a hayrick, a brand that devours wickedness and that will not turn back until guilt is destroyed.

'Of old didst Thou tell us of the time when Thy mighty hand would prevail against the Kittians, in that Thou didst declare: "Assyria shall fall by the sword of no human, and the sword of no man shall devour him".

'Into the hands of the needy hast Thou delivered the foemen in all lands, and into the hands of them that were bowed to the dust. So hast Thou humbled the mighty of the peoples; brought their deserts upon the wicked; vindicated among all men the truthfulness of Thy judgments; won for Thyself eternal fame among the people [whom Thou hast redeemed; revealed to those whom Thou hast worsted that Thou art indeed the Lord] of Battles; (56) shown forth Thy great and holy Being (57) in the sight of the rest of the nations, that [ ] may know [ ], when Thou wreakest judgment upon Gog (58) and upon all his throng and takest vengeance upon [ ], that Thou wilt wage battle against them from heaven [ ]'.

* * *

'For [with Thee] in heaven are a multitude of holy beings, (59) and armies of angels are in Thy holy abode, to [serve as] Thy [legionaries]; (60) and down on earth Thou hast [likewise] placed at Thy service the elect of an holy people. (61) The roster of all their host is with Thee in Thy holy habitation, and the [ ] in Thy glorious abode. And the benefits (62) of Thy blessings and Thy covenant of peace hast thou inscribed for them in a charter (63) of [Eternal] Life—an assurance that through all the epochs of time Thou wilt be their king, and that when Thou contendest in judgment Thou wilt muster an army of (these) Thine elect, in their thousands and tens of thousands, side by side with Thine holy beings and Thine angels, and that they shall prevail in battle and, along with the heavenly elect [be triumphant.]

'O God, Thou, resplendent in Thy sovran glory, and the congregation of Thy holy beings are indeed in our midst as a perpetual help. We have [poured] contempt upon kings, scorn and contumely upon mighty men. For the Lord [Adonai] is holy, and the King of Glory is with us, along with the holy beings. (64) Warrior angels are in our muster, and He that is Mighty in War (65) is in our throng. The army of His spirits marches beside us. Our horsemen come like clouds or like banks of dew, to cover the earth, or like torrential showers, to rain judgment on all that grows in it.'

'Arise, O warrior! (66)
Take thy captives, thou man of glory;
and reap thy spoil, (67) O valiant! (68)
Set thy hand upon the neck of thy foemen, (69)
and thy foot upon mounds of the slain. (70)
Smite the nations that assail thee, (71)
and let thy sword devour guilty flesh. (72)
Fill thy land with glory
and thine inheritance with blessing. (73)
Be a multitude of possessions (74) in thy fields,
silver and gold and precious stones in thy palaces.
Zion, rejoice exceedingly, (75)
and shine forth, O Jerusalem, with songs of joy,
and let all the cities of Judah exult! (76)
Let thy gates be continually open,
that the wealth of the nations may be brought unto thee; (77)
and let their kings minister unto thee,
and all that oppressed thee make obeisance to thee,
and lick the dust of thy feet! (78)
O daughter of my people,
ring out your songs of joy! (79)
Put on your finery, (80)
step forth [ ]
[ ] Israel, to rule for evermore!
[ ] the warriors, O Jerusalem!
Be exalted, O Lord, above the heavens!' (81)

* * *

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[Of The Priestly Benediction]

(xiii, 1-xiv, 1)

And his brethren the priests and the levites and all the elders of the ranks that are with him, standing each in his assigned position, shall bless the God of Israel and all His unerring works, and shall curse the name of Belial and all the spirits associated with him. And they shall take up word and say:

'Blessed be the God of Israel for all His holy plan and for His unerring works; and blessed be all that serve Him in righteousness and acknowledge Him in faithfulness. But cursed be Belial for his invidious schemes, and damned be he for his guilty dominion; and cursed be all the spirits of his ilk for their wicked designs, and damned be they for all their filthy acts and unclean. For they are of the portion of darkness, while the portion of God is everlasting light.

'And now, O God of our fathers, we will bless Thy name for ever. For we are the people [of Thine inheritance.] With our fathers didst Thou make a covenant, and Thou hast confirmed it with their seed throughout the epochs of time. In all the evidences of Thy glory among us there hath always been the memory of Thy covenant. Therefore hast Thou granted help to the remnant and ever renewed that covenant, and therefore hast Thou ever vouchsafed unto us Thy deeds of truth and Thy wondrous acts of justice.

Thou hast made us unto Thee an eternal people, and hast cast our lot in the portion of light, that we may evince Thy truth; and from of old hast Thou charged the Angel of Light (82) to help us. In his hand are all works of right-eousness, and all spirits of truth are under his sway. But for corruption thou hast made Belial, an angel of hostility. All his dominion is in darkness, and his purpose is to bring about wickedness and guilt.

All the spirits that are associ-ated with him are but angels of destruction. They follow only the laws of darkness, and all their craving is directed toward it. But we—we are in the portion of Thy truth. (83) We will rejoice in the might of Thy hand and be glad in; Thy salvation and exult in the strength of [Thy right hand and in the gift] of Thy peace.

'Who is like Thee in strength, O God of Israel? Thy right hand is with the needy.
'And what angel or [prince of heaven] can give such help as Thou givest with Thy redemption?
'Of old hast Thou set for Thyself a day of warfare against wic[kedness], to triumph in truth and to destroy guilt; to bring darkness low and raise light on high; (84) [ ] [to ensure that the Sons of Light] stand for ever, and to destroy all the Sons of Darkness; to bring joy to [all ]. Hast Thou not appointed us for [that time?].'

* * *

'[ ] as when the fire of His fury was kindled against the idols of Egypt'.

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[Of The Hymn Of Victory]

(xiv, 2-17)

When they come up from gathering in the fallen and return to the camps, they shall all of them sing the hymn of return. Next morning, they shall launder their garments and wash themselves clean of the blood of the guilty corpses and return to their assigned positions at the place where the line was drawn up before the slain of the enemy fell. And there they shall all of them bless the God of Israel and extol His name together in joy and take up word and say:

'Blessed be the God of Israel
Who keeps the loyalty of His covenant
and constantly evinces salvation
to the people whom He redeemed.
He has summoned those that were stumbling
[ ] (85)
but has gathered the horde of the heathen for extermination without survival,
exalting the melting heart by [His] justice, opening the mouth of the dumb for joyful song,
endowing with strength hands that were slack,
teaching them arts of war;
giving firm stance to tottering knees
and vigor to the shoulders of the bowed;
and [ ] to the lowly spirits;
firmness to the melting heart,
and [ ] to those whose way is blameless.
All wicked nations are come to an end
and all their heroes have no standing.
But we— [Thou hast granted us] a remnant;
[therefore will we bless] Thy name.

'O God of mercies,
Who keepest the covenant sworn unto our fathers,
and Who, throughout all our generations,
hast wondrously shown forth Thy mercies unto our remnant,
[Thou hast caused us to prevail] against the dominion of Belial
that, for all His covert hostility,
he has not thrust us away from Thy covenant.
Thou hast rebuked the spirits of His lot
[ ] the [ ] of his sway.
Thou hast preserved the life
of [the people] whom Thou didst redeem;
hast upholden the falling by Thy strength,
but cut down all the proud of stature.
Their warriors have none to deliver them;
their fleet men (86) have no escape;
their honored men Thou turnest to contempt;
and every creature of vanity [thou reducest to nau]ght
But we—we are Thy holy people;
For Thy holy works we will praise Thy name,
and for Thy deeds of power we will extol [Thy][ ]
at all the stated times, and at all the foreordained moments of nature:
at the coming of day and night,
and the outgoing of evening and morning; (87)
for great is [ ] of Thy [ ]
and Thy mysterious wonders in the heights.
For Thou raisest up unto Thee out of the dust,
and easiest down from the angels.
Be exalted, be exalted, O God of gods, (88) and lift Thyself up in Thy wrath! [ ]
[Let destruction befall] the Sons of Darkness,
but let Thy great light shine [for the Sons of, Light ]'.

* * *

B (89)

[Preparations For Battle]

(xv, 1-2)

* * *

[For it is a 'time of trouble for Israel',] (90) and of the [visitation of war upon all the nations. They that have cast their lot with God shall [be blessed] with everlasting redemption, but annihilation shall overtake all the wicked nations. All who have been making preparations for the war shall go and pitch camp against the king of the Kit-tians and against all the army of Belial that are destined along with him [for the day of vengeance] by God's sword.

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[Of The Exhortation Of The Troops]

(xv, 3-xvi, 1)

The high priest shall stand up with his brethren the priests and the levites and all the men of the ranks beside him, and shall recite in their hearing the prayer of the battle line and shall rehearse to them the full order of regulations for the occasion together with all the words of their thanksgivings, and he shall there marshal all the lines according to [ ]; and the priest that is chosen by the unanimous decision of his brethren to officiate at the moment of vengeance (91) shall walk about and encourage all the troops and say:

'Be strong and stout-hearted and acquit ye as men of valor. Be not afeared neither dismayed [neither terrified before] them; and be not a-quail neither awe-struck before them, and turn not back, neither [ ], for they are a wicked horde, and all their deeds are in darkness, and for darkness is all their craving. But all their refuges and strength shall be as smoke that dissolves, and all their multitudinous throng [ ]. None of their [ ] shall be found any more, and all their ruinous structure (92) shall be speedily cut down [ ].

Be of good courage for the battle of God; for this day has been determined as the day of battle [ ] against all [ ] and as the day of combat against all flesh. The God of Israel lifts up His hand with wondrous power [against] all the spirits of wickedness [ ]. And the warrior angels gird themselves for battle; they are marshalled in serried ranks and [mustered] for the day [of combat] [ ], to remove [ ] in his destruction'.

* * *

The God of Israel has [summoned] a sword against all the nations, (93) but with the saints of His people He will do a work of power'.

=======

[Of The Order Of Battle]

(xvi, 2-9)

This is the order of their operations [ ] when they stand over against the camps of the Kittians. After the priests have sounded a blast for them on the trumpets of [memorial,] (94) they shall open gaps [in the ranks], and the infantry shall go forth, and their columns shall stand between the lines; and the priests shall sound for them the, signal for drawing up the lines, and at the sound of the trumpets the chiefs shall disperse and each take up his position at his assigned place.

Then the priests shall blow a second time, and when they stand over against the line of the Kittians, within hurling distance, each man shall raise his hand with the weapon in it. Six [times] shall the priests sound on the trumpets the signal for carnage—a sharp, insistent sound, to direct the battle. And the levites and all the people with rams' horns shall sound a loud blast. And as the sound goes forth, they shall start lashing out and felling the Kittians. All the people shall silence then" war-cries while the priests are sounding on the trumpets the signal for carnage. And the battle shall be waged victoriously against the Kittians.

=======

[Of Encouragement In Moments Of Reverse]

(xvi, 11-xvii, 15)

In the event that Belial girds himself to help the Children of Darkness, so that through God's inscrutable will and as a means whereby he may 'put the gold to the test',95 the corpses of the infantry begin to fall, the priests shall sound the signal of assembly for the second line to go out as a relief to the battle. They shall stand between the lines, and as the relief approaches the original line, they shall sound the signal for the former to retire. Then the high priests shall come near and stand before the second line and encourage them [ ] in God's war. And he shall take up word and say:

'[Blessed be He who] strengthens the heart of His people; who "tests [the gold"]. He will not suffer your slain [to be many]. For ye have heard of old of the mysterious ways of God'.

'[ ] and He hath appointed their retribution, hotly pursuing them; and [He will come to the rescue] of those tested in the trial, [ ]. And He hath sharpened His weapons, and they shall not be [blunted] until the wicked is [consumed.] And as for you, remember the judgment passed upon Nadab and [Abih]u, the sons of Aaron. By passing judgment upon them God also shewed His holiness before the sight of the people, in that he [at once] chose [Eleazar] and Ithamar to confirm the covenant of eternal [priesthood]. (96)

'And ye—be of good courage and fear them not. For they are but vanity. All their craving is for emptiness and futility, and that in which they rely shall be as though it had never been. But as for the God of Israel, all that has been and is and shall be throughout the vicissitudes of all time are in His hand.

'This is the day which He hath appointed for abasing and humbling the [Prince] of the Dominion of Wickedness. But He will send perpetual help to those who have a share in His redemption through the power of Michael, (97) the mighty, ministering angel; and He will send also an eternal light to light up the children of Israel with joy. (98) They that have cast their lot with God shall enjoy peace and blessing.

In this way, the rule of Michael will be exalted among the angels, and the dominion of Israel among all flesh. Righteousness shall flourish in heaven, and all who espouse God's truth shall rejoice in the knowledge of eternal things. And ye, the sons of His covenant, be of good courage in the trial which God visits upon you, until He gives the sign (99) that He has completed His test. His secret powers will always support you'.

After these words, the priests shall blow a blast to deploy the various divisions of the line; and at the sound of the trumpets, the columns shall break up and take up positions in their assigned places.

Then the priests shall sound a second blast on the trumpets to bid them draw near. And when the men of the line draw near the lines of the Kittians, and are within hurling distance, everyone shall raise his hand with his weapons in it, and the priests shall sound on the trumpets the signal for carnage, and all the people with rams' horns shall sound a blast, and the infantry shall start to launch out against the army of the Kittians, and to fell them. Then all the people shall silence the sound of the blast, while the priests keep on blowing [ ] to attacks before them.

=======

[Of Thanksgiving For Victory]

(xviii, 1-15)

When the great hand of God is raised against Belial and against all the forces under his dominion, inflicting on them an eternal discomfiture, and when the war-cry of Israel and of the holy beings rings out, as they pursue Assyria; and when the sons of Japhet fall never to rise, and when the Kittians are cut off without [survivor]; then, [ ] when the hand of the God of Israel has indeed prevailed against all the multitude of Belial, the priests shall sound the blasts of memorial, and all the lines of battle shall rally unto them, and all shall receive their portion of the spoil [ ] to 'devote' it. (100) And when the sun is hasting to set on that day, the high priest shall stand up, and the priests and the levites that are with him, and he shall look upon the [ ] battle array and there bless the God of Israel. And they shall take up word and say:

'Blessed be Thy name, O God [of merci]es, for Thou hast done great and wondrous things. From of old hast Thou kept Thy covenant unto us; and because of that [cov]enant of Thine (and) in accordance with Thy goodness towards us, Thou hast oftimes opened for us gates of salvation, when we were oppressed. So hast Thou done, O God of righteousness, for Thy name's sake.

'[Verily, Thou hast wrought] wondrously, and the like of this hath not been from of old. Thou it is who determined [this] time for us, and this day [Thy glory] hath shone upon us, [ ] and Thy [ ] is with us, ensuring perpetual redemption, removing the enemy from us, that he be no more. And Thy mighty hand [ ] felleth our foemen until final discomfiture. And now the day is pressing upon us to chase after their horde, for Thou [hast] [ ] and chilled the hearts of [their] mighty men, that they cannot stand. Thine is the power, (101) and in Thy hand lies [the issue of] war, and there is none [can withstand Thee]'.

* * *

(Column 19, the concluding column, is largely a duplicate of the high priest's exhortation in Column 12. It is preserved in fragmentary fashion.)

~~~~~~~

The Rout Of Belial: Scriptural Predictions

i-iv

... the LORD will take away from you all sickness [Deut. 7.5]

... [And as for the text which has them saying,] Let us be like the tribes of (other) countries [Ezek. 20.32], ... in an eschatological sense (1) this refers to the time when [Belial] will seek [to seduce them]. (2) ... Specifically, it refers to the fact that a man will arise ... ; from him [will come a very fla]me (?), and [his partisans (?)] will be like a fire to the entire world. (3) It is concerning them that it is writ that in the Last Days [there will arise] intemperate men (4) who will operate with the spirits [of Darkness] and attack the partisans of Light (5) who will be in a state of mourning through the domination of Belial. (6) ... [Howbeit, those who feel this sense of] mourning are [everyone of them registered and spelled out] by name [in God's record (7). .., and He,] being a god of mercy (8) and the God of Israel, [will, when He] deals retribution, [show mercy to] those prophets of Judah whom Belial [seduced], (9) and they will be forgiven (10) for all time, and He will bless them, forasmuch as He has said that He would bless them for ever [II Sam. 7.29].

... The several epochs which are to be completed, [the nam]es of their leading men (lit. fathers), [the number of] their years and the periods of their office, [together with their] ... and language, are all spelled out, man for man ... ; [and] behold, [the names of their] progeny are all inscribed on the (heavenly) tablets (11) which God [communicated to] ... , (12) apprising him of the number of the (successive) generations, and which he gave as an inheritance ... to him and his seed for ever. And he proceeded to go thence. (13) ...

Blow the ram's horn in Gibeah [Hos. 5.8]. The ram's horn is (symbolic of) the Book of... The reference is to a second (giving of) the Book of the Law (Torah), (14) which the men of His council [have spurned]. They have spoken rebelliously against it (or, Him), (15) and for[get (?)]... the great signs (16) [which He is displaying] over ... and Jacob, as He stands upon the winepress and makes merry over the flow of [the juice]. (17) And as for the saying that He will cut off their enemies by the sword, (18) the reference in the word sword is to His own partisans (lit. the men of His counsel).

And as to the statement, ...

v-vi

... [As to] the prophet [Isaiah's statement], This year you shall feed on casual grains [Isa. 37.30], the casual grains denote the [Wr]ath (19) which will endure until the Time of Testing. (20) Thereafter there will arise [a Teacher of Righteousness (?)], (21) for they are all of them (mere) children; (22) they have bartered [their (finer) instincts for foolish delusion]. (23) These 'foolish men' are those who [disdain(?)] the Book [of Study(?)]. (24) The Torah of these fools is [ ], wherefore (Scripture) has called them [Pursuers of infamy (Ps. 119, 150)], (25) in conformity with the statement, He devises infamous plans, to ruin the poor by falsehoods [Isa. 32.7], thereby poisoning(?) (26) Israel.

For the Chief Musician; attributed to David. In the LORD have I taken refuge. How then can you go saying to me: Flee to the mountains like a bird! See how the wicked are bending their bows, are fitting the arrow to the string [Psalm 11.1-2]. The word flee here connotes that Godminded men [are being made to flee] like a bird from His Place and are being driven into exile. (27) Allusion is made to them in the Book of .. , (28)

For the Chief Musician: on the octave (29) [Psalm 12.1]. The reference is to the Eighth (world-) period, (30) [when ..., and the wicked will have] no peace because they are 'seekers after smooth things'. (31)

(As to the words:) Butchering of bullocks and slaughtering of sheep; wining and dining [Isa. 22.13], the reference is to the behavior of the partisans of Belial who [savage (32) the men that have been observing] the Law-that is, the men who form (this) commune (of ours), (33) the men who be[ar the] yo[ke of God's service]. (34)

vii

[And as to the text which says ... , this refers to the fact that He will destr]oy [the partisans of Belial] who seek to harm [ ]. It is to them that Scripture refers when it speaks in the Book of the pro[phet] Ezekiel of men against whom there will be assembled (35) [.... and upon whom there will be visited His plag]ues (?) (36)—men who have been worshipping [other] go[ds, and directing their lusts (?)] towards that which is (really) impure to them and to that which .... [cp. Ezek. 30.34-36].

viii

[Fragmentary]

ix

... upon them at the end [of days]. ... [Retribution will befall] them amid the multitude of those who will be purged away. (37) ... These are the congregation of them that 'seek after [smooth things]' (38) ... through their frenzy and hostility. ... [When God purges them] from Judah [He will at the same time wreak vengeance] on all the peoples, [entering into judgment] with righteous and wicked (alike), (39) with the foolish and the naive, [and with those who have not rem]oved (their) moral uncleanli-ness, (40) so that, in the la[st] generation, (41) He might set them aright.

x-xi

The words of the LORD are words as good as pure metals, silver purified by smelting (here) on earth, gold seven times refined [Psalm 12.7]. (42) This chimes with the text which says: Look at this (precious) stone which I set before Joshua, one stone with seven facets. ... [Look, 'It is I'] quoth the LORD, '[that will make] the engraving upon if [Zech. 3.9]....

... It is to them that Scripture alludes when it says, I will heal the (43) ... [ ]. [The slag represents a]ll the men of Belial and all the rabble that follows in then-wake, (44) [while the purified silver and the refined gold] stand for the (authentic) exponent of the Law, for [in him] there is no [alloy]. (45) ... ; no man will desert his post. (46) When [these men] arise (or, hold office), [the baser metal will indeed be purged away—that is, the sons of darkness (?)] who have been causing the sons of light to stumble. (47) ...

[How long, O LORD,] wilt Thou forget [me? (Will it be) for ever? How long wilt Thou hi]de Thy face from me? How long must I suffer [anguish in my soul, grief in my heart day by day]? How long [is my enemy to triumph over me? (Psalm 13.2-3)]. The meaning of the words for ever is that the heart of men of (48) .... to test them and refine them. (49) The enemy (of whom the text speaks) has been saying, ....

xii—xiii

.... [As to the text which says,] Guidance (torah) [shall not perish] from the pri[est, nor counsel from the sage, nor the word] from the prophet [Jer. 18.18], in an eschatological sense [this refers to] the same situation as is described by David when he says, Con[demn me] not, LORD, in Thine anger, [neither chasten me in Thy wrath. Be gracious to me, LORD,] for I am weak; [heal me, O LORD, for my bones are perturbed; yea,] my very soul is greatly perturbed; and now, LORD, how long more? Be gracious to me, rescue [my] soul! [Psalm 6.2-3.] [The reference is to those who are being crashed (?) and exposed to oblo]quy (50) on account of [the machinations of] Belial to destroy them in his fury, not leaving th[em ....] (51) so that in the (whole) city there be not more than but ten (52) righteous men, inasmuch as he has caused the spirit of truth [to depart from them(?), and they are indeed greatly perturbed (?)], for, through the machinations of Belial, (53) both they themselves and their brethren (in general) have no [peace], and (Belial) keeps strengthening [his snares(?)] (54) against th[em].... (Howbeit), [God and] the angel of His truth will bring aid to all the sons of light. [He will snatch them] out of the hand of Belial (55) [who now plans to scatter] and disperse them in a dry and desolate land. (56)

This is indeed the time of affliction. (57) .. The righteous is in flight, but the great hand of God will be with them to help them. [He will deliver them] from all the spirits of [perversity because] they have placed [their reliance (or, refuge) in the wond]rous acts of God and of His holy beings. (58) They will (yet) come to Zion in joy and to Jerusalem [in jubilation. ....]. [Be]lial and all his partisans [will be routed] and [destroyed] for ever, while all the sons of li[ght] will be ingathered. (59)

.... [This is what is meant by Scripture] when it says, As for the saints that are on ear[th], and the -worthy among the general, it is [in them} that I take delight [Psalm 16.3], (60) [even though now there be (?) melting of heart and] quaking of knees and writhing in every limb [Nahum 2.11]. [This is the situation implied in the verse,] Pay heed unto my plaint, give ear unto [my prayer] (Psalm 17.1). ... the council of the commune, (61) and He/it. ...

XV-XXX

(There are sixteen further fragments containing only isolated words and parts of words.)

The Coming Doom

[They pay no heed to the] real hidden [meaning of things, but divert themselves instead with all] kinds of iniquitous arcane lore. [ ] They do not know the hidden meaning of what is actually taking place, nor have they ever understood the lessons of the past. Consequently, they have no knowledge of what is coming upon them and have done nothing to save their souls from the deeper implications of present events.

This, however, will symbolize things for you. What is going to happen is, as it were, that all iniquity is going to be shut up in the womb and prevented from coming to birth. Wrong is going to depart before Right, as darkness departs before light As smoke disappears and is no more, so will Wrong disappear for ever. But Right will be revealed like the sun. The world will rest on a sound foundation. All who cling to rarefied arcane lore will cease to exist. The world will be filled with knowledge, and ignorance exist no more.

The thing is certain to come. The prophecy is true, and by this you may know that it will not be revoked:

Do not all peoples hate wrongdoing? Yet, is it not rampant among them all? Are not the praises of truth sung by all nations? Yet is there a single race or tribe that really adheres to it? What nation likes to be oppressed by a stronger power? Or who wants his property plundered unjustly? Yet, is there a single nation that has not oppressed its neighbor? Or where in the world will you find a people that has not plundered the property of another?

* * *

Weal And Woe: An Exhortation

(I, i 5-15)

(The opening lines are fragmentary, but seem to say that God is pure and holy and will champion [those that espouse] His tr[uth], but will [call evildoers to accou]nt (1) and exact punishment from them, even if they go on sinning ten times over, (2) i.e., incessantly.)

....... and there will be no strength to withstand it (3)(i.e., the punishment), neither any hope (4) for [the guilty]. (5) Who will be able to withstand God's (*) angels, for like a blazing fire will they execute judgment, and His spirits will [wreak vengeance]? (6) Mere mortals that ye be, h[ow will ye escape]? For behold, man is like grass which sprouts from its ground, and his glory blossoms like a flower; when once God's (*) breath has blown [upon it, its root] withers, (7) and the wind carries off its flower, so that it has no continuance, (but) [peri]shes for ev[er], and in consequence of (a single) gust of wind, is no more to be found. (So) will men seek him, but find him not; (8) and there will be no hope. He-[his] da[ys] are like a shadow on the grou[nd]. (9) (Wherefore,) my people, now hearken to me, and ye fools give mind to me, and grow wise (10) through (awareness of) God's (*) [po]wer. Recall the wonders He wrought in Egypt and His portents [in the Land of Ham, (11) and so] let your hearts take fright at the terror He wields. (12)

----

[*] Heb. 'His'.

----

(I, ii)

Do, then, [His] wi[ll with a perfect heart, (13) for so will He spare] your lives, (†) in accordance with His goodly mercies.

Seek out for yourselves a way to life; (14) [make ye a straight] highroad (15) to [deliverance] and survival for your children after you. Wherefore should ye yield your [souls] to She[ol, (‡) and your bodies to the scourges of that Ju]dgment which—so I have heard—(is coming) upon us? (16)

Defy not the words of the LORD. (17) Take not a (single) step [away from the holy Law] (18) which was writ (19) [for the offspring of Ja]cob (and) which God (§) decreed (20) for (that of) Isaac.

Is not a single day [in His courts] better than ten (outside them)? (21) [Let] the fear of Him [be with you day by day,] (22) and not (merely) from time to time. [So will ye be delivered] alike from the Terror and 'the fowler's snare'; (23) [salvation will be yours and redemption, [and ye will be spared] from His angels (of judgment). For there is no darkness [where wrongdoers and frowa]rd (men) can be [hid]. (24) (Nay,) God (§) [will visit] His [sc]ourge [upon them]. (25) I, for my part, am conscious (of this), (26) but ye—what will ye [do on the day of Inquisition, (27) at the time when] woe proceeds [from] Him unto every people?

Happy is the man to whom there has been given out of [His] tr[easury the reward reserved for them that fear Him and the glo]ry which they have earned! (**) (28)

Let not the wicked vaunt themselves, (29) saying: 'He will not take count of [my wrongdoing, neither compute it] against me, for He [always shows mercy] to Israel, so that when He takes measure thereof, it will be with the measure of [kind]ness, (††) and the whole of His people will it be that He will redeem. (Only) them that h[ate Him] will He slay, [and (only) the heathen will He de]str[oy]? 'Nay,' says He, 'it is (only) the man that [dispenses (?) good]ness (?) that will receive it; [(only) the man who se]eks it (30) that will find it; and [(only) the man who ... es] it that will fall heir (?) to it.(31)

----

[†] Heb. 'souls'.
[‡] That is, the netherworld.
[§] Heb. 'He'.
(**) Heb. simply, 'their glory'.
[††] Heb. '[good]ness'.

----

Along with it also will go ... and joy of heart together with [abundance] of God's mercies, ... and salvation [everlasting]. (32) Happy is the man who practises it and does not ...; (33) who does not go trying to acquire it (‡‡) with disingenuous [heart], (34) nor lay claim (35) to it by dissimulation. (36) So will he too possess it, even as it <was> bestow<ed> (37) upon his forebears, [and if he but cling to it] with all his might and main, (§§) interminably with all his [power], he (too) will leave it as a heritage to his offspring. (38) I know, (39) indeed, that God will mete out to [His] people their [deserts]. (40) ...

* * *

(III, 11-15)

.... [God will probe] into the inner recesses of man's being, and search out his reins. (41)

.... It is the tongue of one who has knowledge that has been speaking. (42) God has made hands [to carry out His purpose(?)]. ...

----

[‡‡] Heb. "who does not seek it'.
[§§] Heb. 'with all the might of his strength'.

----

The Last Jubilee: A Sermon ('Melchizedek Texts')

(Reconstruction)

{1} I take my text from the law of the jubilee. In this year of the jubilee, we read, you shall return, everyone of you, to his patrimony (Lev. 25.13).

{2-3} THIS is OF A PIECE WITH the commandment concerning the Period of Remission. WHAT is MEANT BY THE PERIOD OF REMISSION, SAYS THE SCRIPTURE, is THAT ANYONE WHO HAS MADE A LOAN TO HIS NEIGHBOR IS THEN NOT TO EXACT PAYMENT OF IT FROM THAT NEIGHBOR OR KINSMAN, SEEING THAT A PERIOD OF

{4} REMISSION HAS BEEN DECLARED BY GOD (l) (Deut. 15.2).

AS APPLIED TO THE LAST DAYS, (2) THIS REFERS TO THE Liberation (3) of those IN CAPTIVITY, CONSONANT WITH THE WORDS of Isaiah: (The Lord has sent me) to proclaim liberation to captives (Isa. 61.1). Since the (Hebrew) word for 'liberation' is homonymous with one meaning 'swallow' (4)—which is, of course, a

{5} celestial creature—THIS SIGNIFIES THAT THEY WILL BECOME ONE WITH THE SONS OF HEAVEN. (5)

The same may be expressed ALSO by saying that [THEY WILL PARTAKE] [OF THE INHERITANCE OF [MELCHIZEDEK. Melchizedek, you will recall, was 'a priest of God Most High' who pronounced the blessing of that God over our father Abraham (Gen. 14.18-20). Now, the 'inheritance' of a priest is, as we learn from the Scriptures, the Lord God Himself, (6) and since the God of Melchizedek is expressly described as 'owner of heaven and earth', the meaning is that Abraham will thenceforth have a stake in the things both of heaven on high and of the earth below. (7) Moreover, since the priesthood in Israel and that of Melchizedek himself are said in Scripture to be eter-nal (cf. Num. 25.13; Ps. 110.4), it is not only to Abraham but also to his offspring that this privilege is vouchsafed; they will be linked to God in an everlast-ing covenant (cf. Gen. 17.7, 19, etc.) and the Lord Himself will be their inheritance and patrimony (cf. Ezek. 44.28).

{6} At the final jubilee, therefore, GOD WILL IN FACT BE RESTORING THEM TO what is rightfully theirs; they will indeed 'return, every one, to his patrimony'.

As FOR THE ALLUSION in the law of the jubilee (Lev.25.10) TO proclaiming liberation to them, THIS IS TO BE UNDERSTOOD ALSO IN THE SENSE THAT HE WILL THEN REMIT [THE FULL TERM OF] THE PUNISHMENT FOR THEIR MISDEEDS, for the (Hebrew) word rendered 'liberation' is also a technical term for the remission of debts. (8)

{7} ALL THIS WILL HAPPEN IN THE FINAL 'WEEK' OF A SERIES OF YEARS INVOLVING NINE PRECEDING JUBI-LEES. (9) WHEN, THEREFORE, THE SCRIPTURE SPEAKS OF A DAY OF ATONEMENT to be observed in the seventh month, on the tenth day of that month (Lev. 25.9) WHAT is MEANT, in an eschatological sense, is THAT this final jubilee will be marked BY A DAY ON WHICH

{8} ALL THE CHILDREN OF LIGHT (10) AND ALL WHO HAVE CAST THEIR LOT WITH (THE CAUSE OF) RIGHTEOUS-NESS (11) WILL ACHIEVE FORGIVENESS OF THEIR SIN. [WHEREAS THE WICKED WILL REAP THEIR DESERTS AND BE BROUGHT TO AN E]ND.

{9} THIS is THE ERA which Isaiah terms the Year on Favor (Isa. 61.2) (12)-that is, the one designed, by God's favor, for the King of Righteousness-which is what, by his very name, MELCHIZEDEK prefigures-to come into his dominion. [He WILL TAKE THE LEAD AMONG] GOD'S (HEAVENLY) SAINTS (13) IN EXECUTING

{10} THE VARIOUS SENTENCES OF JUDGMENT, (14) EVEN AS IT is SAID IN THE SONGS (15) OF DAVID: God has taken His stand in the council divine, among the beings divine, (16) to render judgment (Ps. 82.1). OR AGAIN, in another

{11} place, IT SAYS: (Though a very congregation of (heathen) peoples now surround you), rise above it, O Israel, and return to your eminence, (17) (for) God will judge the peoples (Ps. 7.8-9). The return in question is, of course, that which is prefigured in the rule of the jubilee that everyone is then to return to his patrimony (Lev. 25.13).

Moreover, it should be observed that the (Hebrew) word for Favor can also be understood, by a different derivation, (18) to mean the expiration of a term of punishment, so that this too is implied in the prophet's expression.

THERE is A FURTHER REFERENCE TO THIS FINAL JUDGMENT IN THE CONTINUATION OF THE VERSE FROM THE PSALTER. How long, we read, will you go judging unjustly and showing partiality to the wicked? Selah.

{12} (Ps. 7.9). THE ALLUSION is TO BELIAL AND THE SPIRITS OF HIS ILK (19)—THAT is, TO (elders who sit in assizes but) DEFY GOD'S STATUTES IN ORDER TO PER[VERT

{13} JUSTICE]. (20) The future King of Righteousness-that is, MELCHIZEDEK redivivus—WILL EXECUTE [UPON THEM] GOD'S AVENGING JUDGMENTS, AND at the same

{14} time DELIVER [THE JUST] FROM THE HANDS OF BELIAL AND ALL (THOSE) SPIRITS OF HIS ILK. WlTH ALL 'THE ANGELS [OF RIGHTEOUSNESS]' (21) AT HIS AID, HE WILL [BLA]ST [THE COUNCIL OF] BELIAL [TO DESTRUCTION]. (22) But the faithful, as the Psalmist says, will return to (their) eminence (ibid.), THE EMINENCE IN QUESTION BEING THE [DESTINATION] OF ALL WHO ARE INDEED CHILDREN OF GOD.

{15} THE visi[TATioN] (23) OF WHICH I HAVE BEEN SPEAKING IS THE SAME AS THE DAY OF [RETRIBUTION] (24) OF WHICH THE PROPHET [ISA]IAH SPEAKS IN THE WORDS:

{16} How fair upon the mountains are the feet of the herald who proclaims 'Shalom! (peace)', the herald of good tidings who proclaims 'Salvation'! who says to Zion, 'Your God has now claimed His kingdom!' (Isa. 52.7), for the word shalom may also be read shillum, 'retribution', as who should say, 'All is hell!' rather than 'All is well!'

{17} THE MOUNTAINS in that passage STAND FOR THE PROPHETS, [AND THE FEET FOR THEIR WORDS, WHEREBY] THEY BR[ING THEIR MESSAGE] TO ALL [WHO ARE WILLING TO LISTEN]; (25) WHILE THE HERALD is he who is elsewhere described AS THE ONE ANOINTED

{18} WITH THE SPIRIT (Isa. 61.1)—THE SAME WHOM DAN-[IEL] CALLS THE [ANOINTED LEADER WHO WILL MAKE HIS APPEARANCE AT THE END OF SEVEN WEEKS (OF

{19} YEARS) (26)—THAT IS, AT THE FINAL JUBILEE.] Similarly, THE HERALD OF GOOD TIDINGS, THE SAME WHO PROCLAIMS ['SHALOM'] is HE OF WHOM IT is WRITTEN: [(The Lord has sent me) to comfort all who mourn,

{20-22} etc.] (Isa. 61.3), for the word shalom suggests also the expression shallem nihumim, (27) which is used of comforting mourners (Isa. 57.18). THE COMFORT IN QUESTION WILL CONSIST IN GIVING THEM A TRUE OVER-ALL VIEW OF THE SUCCESSIVE ERAS OF HISTORY (LIT. THE WORLD), IN THEIR RESPECTIVE TIMES. (28)

{22} At that time, IT WILL BE FROM BELIAL, not from God, THAT MEN WILL TURN AWAY IN REBELLION, (29) AND THERE WILL [BE A RE-ESTABLISHMENT OF THE REIGN OF RIGHTEOUSNESS, PERVERSITY BEING CON-

{23} FOUNDED] BY THE JUDGMENTS OF GOD. THIS is WHAT SCRIPTURE IMPLIES EM THE WORDS, Who says to Zion, Your God has now claimed His kingdom! (Isa. 52.7), THE TERM ZlON THERE DENOTING THE TOTAL CONGRE-

{24} GATION OF THE 'SONS OF RIGHTEOUSNESS' (30)—THAT IS,' THOSE WHO MAINTAIN THE COVENANT (31) AND TURN AWAY FROM THE POPULAR TREND, (32) AND YOUR GOD

{25} SIGNIFYING [THE KING OF RIGHTEOUSNESS, ALIAS MELCHIZEDEK REDIVrVUS, WHO WILL DEST]ROY(?) BELIAL.

OUR TEXT SPEAKS ALSO OF SOUNDING A LOUD ] TRUMPET BLAST THROUGHOUT THE LAND ON THE TENTH DAY OF THE SEVENTH MONTH (Lev. 25.9). [As APPLIED TO THE LAST DAYS, THIS REFERS TO THE FANFARE WHICH WILL THEN BE SOUNDED BEFORE THE MESSIANIC KING.] (33)

(The rest is lost)

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The New Covenant

(Col. 1)

. . . . .

[but wilt Thou] allot unto the righteous.

The portion of the wicked shall be [to be afflicted with pain]s in their bones and to be a reproach to all flesh; but the righteous [shall be destined to en]joy the rich delights (1) of heaven and to be [glut]ted (2) on the yield of the earth.

[Thou wilt distinguish between the right]eous and the wicked.
Thou wilt give the wicked as our [ran]som, and the faithless [in exchange for us]. (3)

[Thou wilt make] an end of all that oppress us;
and we shall give thanks unto Thy name for ever, [and bless Thee alway;]
for this it is for which Thou hast created us,
and that it is that [beseemeth] Thee.
BLESSED ...

(Col. 2)

[and Thou hast appointed] the greater luminary for the season of [day and the lesser luminary for the season of night], (4) and there is no overstepping their bounds. They all [minister unto Thee, and defy not Thy word], (5) and their sway is over all the world.

But the seed of man hath not understood all of which Thou hast made it heir, neither have men known Thee whensoever Thou hast spoken;
but they have done more wickedly than all things else, and have not perceived (6) Thy great power.
And Thou hast rejected them, because Thou delightest not in wrongdoing, and wickedness hath no standing in Thy presence.

Howbeit, in the time of Thy good pleasure, (7) Thou wilt (again) choose unto Thyself a people, for Thou hast remembered Thy covenant; and Thou wilt make them to be set apart unto Thee as an holy thing distinct from all the peoples; and Thou wilt renew Thy Covenant unto them with a show of glory (8) and with words of Thy holy [spirit,] with works of Thy hand and with a script of Thy right hand, revealing unto them both the basic roots (9) of glory and the heights of eternity; [ ; and Thou wilt ap-point] for them a faithful shepherd, (10) one who will [ ] the lowly and [ ] the [ ].

Manual Of Discipline For The Future Congregation Of Israel

This is the rule for the whole body of Israel when, in the future, they lead their lives in the manner of the sons of Zadok, the priests, and of those associated with them—the men who declined to follow the popular trend, who constituted the true community of God, who went on keeping the Covenant in the midst of general wickedness and so made atonement for the land:

All that present themselves are to be assembled together, women and children included. Then, all the provisions of the Covenant are to be read out aloud to them, and they are to be instructed about all its injunctions, so that no one may fall into error through ignorance.

And this is the rule for all that make up the complement of that body—that is, for every individual who is an Israelite by birth:

Every person is to be trained from childhood in the Book of Study, to be enlightened (so far as his age permits) in the various provisions of the Covenant and to be schooled in its various injunctions for a period of ten years; after which he is to be liable to the regulations regarding the several degrees of purity.

At twenty, he is to undergo an examination preparatory to his admission by vote, as a constituent member of his family, to the council of the holy community. He is not to have carnal knowledge of woman until he is twenty years old and has reached the age of discretion. Furthermore, it is only then that he is to be eligible to give testimony in matters involving the laws of the Torah or to attend judicial hearings.

At twenty-five, he is to take his place in the formal structure of the holy community and be eligible for com-munal office.

At thirty, he may take part in litigation and in rendering judgments and may occupy a position on the staff of the militia—that is, as the captain of a battalion, company, squadron or platoon or as one of the tribal commissioners or officers selected from the various families by the Aaronid priests.

All heads of families within the community who are chosen by lot for communal service, 'to go in and coma out before the congregation', are to receive their assign-ments in accordance with their intellectual ability and their moral integrity. Everyone is to respect the rank of his fellow, and in case of dispute between any two men, each is to be given his commission according to his capacity.

No one who is feeble-minded is to take part in litigation or in rendering judgments in any matter affecting the community as a whole, or is he to occupy any communal office or to serve in the armed forces in wars against the heathen. His family, however, is to be duly registered in the military roster, and he is to be drafted [instead] for compulsory labor in the line of his usual occupation.

The levites are to serve as local adjutants to the Aaronid priests in formally admitting to the armed forces all members of the community selected for service as commissioners or officers in accordance with the total military requirements to be laid down by the sons of Zadok, the priests and the heads of the various families. Ditto in the matter of granting releases. The draft status of every man is to be determined by the heads of the families.

If public notice is posted for a juridical or consultative assembly, or if notice of war be posted, everyone is to observe a three-day period of personal sanctification, so that any one who presents himself on any of these occasions may come duly prepared.

This refers to men over twenty who are eligible for summons to the council and likewise to all the sages, scholars and learned men of the community—the so-called 'irreproachables'—and again to all men serving in the armed forces, including the commissioners and officers and the captains of battalions, companies, squadrons and platoons, as well as to the levites in the several departments of their office. These together constitute the so-called 'dignitaries'—that is, the laymen who sit in the presence of the sons of Zadok, the priests, at all deliberative assemblies.

No one who is afflicted by any form of human uncleanness is to be admitted to the community, nor is anyone who becomes so afflicted to maintain his position within it. Similarly, no one who is afflicted with a bodily defect, who is stricken in hands or feet, who is lame or blind or deaf or dumb, or who has any visible bodily defect, is to be admitted to a place among the 'dignitaries' for 'holy angels are in the congregation'.

If any such person has something to say to the sacred council, an oral deposition is to be taken from him, but he himself is not to come, seeing that he is afflicted.

This is the protocol for a session of the dignitaries, the men eligible for summons to the consultative council, in the event that the anointed (king) should be present among them:

The (high) priest, as head of the entire community of Israel, is to come first, and the heads of the Aaronid priestly families and the dignitaries—that is, the men eligible for summons to meetings of the general council—are to take their seats before him in order of rank. After that, the anointed (king), being a layman, is to come, and the chiefs of the armed forces are to take their seats before him in order of rank, each occupying the same position as he does in camp or on the march. Then, in turn, the heads of the families of the community, together with the sages, [scholars and learned men], are to take their seats before them.

If they happen to be foregathering for a common meal or to drink wine together, when the common board has been spread or the wine mixed for drinking, no one is to stretch out his hand for the first portion of the bread or wine prior to the priest. It is he who is to pronounce the blessing over the first portion of the bread or wine, and it is he that is first to stretch out his hand to the bread. After that, the anointed (king), a layman, is to stretch out his hand to the bread; and after that the members of the community in general are to pronounce the blessing, in order of rank.

This rule is to obtain at all meals where there are ten or more men present.

~~~~~~~

'Thy Kingdom Come'

1. The Messianic King

Genesis 49:10

[Ne'er shall the sceptre from Judah depart, nor the ruler's staff from between his feet, until (in the end) one who owns them (1) shall come and claim the subservience of peoples.]

(This means that) the wielding of sovereignty (2) will [never] be diverted from the tribe of Judah. So long as Israel possesses a government of its own, occupancy (3) of the throne shall [not] be dissociated from (the line of) David. For the word mehoqeq (commonly rendered 'ruler's staff, is connected with hoq, 'statute, stipulation', and thus) (4) refers to the covenant (sworn by God) regarding the kingship, (5) while the 'feet' denote the clans of Israel. (6)

(The words, Until one who owns them shall come mean:) Until the coming of the legitimately anointed (king), the Scion of David. (7) For it was to David and his seed that the covenant was given regarding kingship over his people for eternal generations—(that covenant) which [the Lord] has indeed kept [and maintained and now con-sum]mated (8) with the members of (this) Community, [the expression, The subservience of peoples] referring to the church (9) of the members of [(this) Community].

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II. Testimonia: Proof-Texts Of The Messianic Era

A. The Commitment And The Promise

Deuteronomy 5.25-26 (28-29) (1-4)

And the LORD (1) spake unto Moses, saying: Thou hast heard (2) the voice of the words of this people, which they have spoken unto thee. They have well said all that they have spoken. Would only that they be so minded alway, to hold Me in awe and keep My commandments, that it may go well with them and their children for ever!

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B. The Coming Prophet

Deuteronomy 18.18-19 (5-8)

I will raise them up a prophet from among their brethren, one like unto thee; and I will put My words in his mouth, and he shall speak unto them all that I command Him. And it shall be that if any man hearken not unto My words which the prophet speaketh in My name, I shall require it of him.

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C. The Star Of Jacob

Numbers 24.15-17 (9-13)

And he took up his parable and said:
The rede of Balaam, son of Beor,
the rede of the man whose sight is undimmed, (3)
the rede of him who hears God's words,
who knows the mind (4) of Him on High,
who, though a-swoon, yet with open eyes
sees the Almighty in vision:
I see it, though not of this time,
descry it, though yet it be far:
A star out of Jacob is heading, (5)
out of Israel is rising a rod;
it shall smite the brow of Moab,
and batter all that work havoc! (6)

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D. The Role Of The Priest

Deuteronomy 33.8-11 (14-20)

And of Levi he said:

Bestow (7) on the Levites (8) the gift of Thy light,
Thy perfection (9) on them that are loyal to Thee
—whom Thou has put to the test, (10)
challenged as by waters of ordeal; (11)
who, saying to their fathers and mothers,
'We ignore you',
disregarding their kinsmen,
acknowledging not their own sons,
have stood sentinel over Thy word,
safeguarded Thy covenant-
that they may bring the light of Thy judgments to Jacob (12)
and of Thy teaching (Torah) to Israel,
so setting (as it were) incense in Thy nostril
and a whole burnt-offering upon Thine altar. (13)

Endow them, LORD, (14) with the blessing of strength,
and favour the work of their hands;
smite the loins of them that rise up against them
and of them that hate them, that they rise not again!

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E. The Discomfiture Of The Impious

Joshua 6.26 (21-30)

Said Joshua when he had finished giving praise and rendering thanks in his praises: (15)

Cursed be the man that rebuildeth this city. (16)
With his firstborn shall he lay the foundation
thereof, and with his lastborn set up its gates!

The 'cursed one' in question is that man of Belial who is even now standing up to serve as a fowler's snare (17) unto his people and a source of ruin to all its neighbours. He has stood up [to incite the two so that] both of them are become as instruments of violence. They have proceeded to rebuild [the city and have ere]cted for it a wall and towers that it may serve as a stronghold of wickedness. (18) [They have done a shocking thing] in Israel and an appalling thing in Ephraim and Judah. (19) They have wrought defilement in the land and great filthiness among [their] com[patriots, spilling blo]od like water over the rampart of the daughter of Zion and in the bounds of Jerusalem.

* * *

III. A 'Messianic Florilegium

II Samuel, 7.10-14

[The Human Temple]

(10-lla) [I will appoint a place for My people Israel, and will plant them, that they may be settled there un-disturbed;] and no son of perversity (1) shall oppress them any more, as has happened throughout the past, ever since that day when I commanded judges to be over My people Israel.

The reference here is to the House [which God will cause to be built for His abiding] in the Last Days, even as it is written in the Book of the Law: A sanctuary, O LORD, have Thy hands established, (whence) the LORD shall reign for ever and ever [Ex. 15, 17-18]. It will be a house in which (as the Scripture puts it) neither Ammonite nor Moabite nor half-breed nor alien nor stranger shall ever enter [Deut 23.3-4; Ezek. 44.9], but where (only) those shall be that are God's saints. [Moreover, the words, (whence) the LORD shall reign for ever] and ever (mean that) God will be manifest over it at all times, and that never again, as in the past, will aliens lay waste the sanctuary of Israel on account of his sins.

What (in fact) God here declares is that (in the future) there shall be built for Him a sanctuary constituted out of mankind itself (2)—a sanctuary in which performance of the things laid down in the Law shall rank as the equivalent of the (erstwhile) burning of incense in His presence.

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[Freedom From Belial]

(11b) And as for His saying to David, I will give thee rest from all thine enemies, this means that God will (then) give them rest from all those 'sons of Belial' who put stumbling blocks in their way in order to compass their rack [and ruin], (3) i.e., from all who will (then) enter into the conspiracy (*) of Belial and lay stumbling blocks for [the Children of] Light, devising devilish devices [†] against them, so as to make them yield to Belial because [their hearts] have been led astray. (4)

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[*] Heb. counsel; cp. Nah., 1.11.
[†] Heb. devices of Belial.

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[The Scion Of David]

(11c) Also the LORD telleth thee that He will build (5) thee an house ...
(12b) 7 will raise up thy seed after thee' ...
(13b) 7 will stablish the throne of his kingdom [for ever]'.
(14a) 7 will be unto him a father, and he shall be unto Me a son'. (6)

The 'he' in question is that Scion of David who shall function [and reign] in Zion in the Last Days, alongside the Expounder of the Law, (7) even as the Scripture says: / will raise up the booth of David that is fallen down [Amos 9.11]. These words refer to him who will (then) arise to bring salvation to Israel. (8)

Psalm 1.1

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[Know Your Enemies]

Signification of the words, Happy is the man that hath not walked in the counsel of the wicked. The reference here is to those who have turned aside from the ways (i.e., practices) of the people. A similar expression occurs in the Book of the prophet Isaiah, in reference to the Last Days, viz. Then, with a grasp of (His) hand, the LORD caused me to turn aside(9) from walking in the way of this people [Isa. 8.11].

The 'people' in question are the levites who, as it is written in the Book of the prophet Ezekiel, are gone far away from Me, straying after their idols, in common with the (general) straying of Israel. (10) They are those of the descendants of Zadok (11) who expound the Law to suit their policies (12) and who follow [their own inclinations], apart from the consensus of the Communal Council.

Psalm 2.1-2

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[The Time Of Testing]

Why do the heathen rage,
and the peoples meditate a vain thing?
Kings of the earth set themselves up,
and rulers conspire
against the LORD and against His anointed.

The reference here is to those kings of the heathen (lit. nations) who, in the Last Days, will [conspire] against the Elect of Israel. (13) This will be the Time of Testing (14) which is to come ...

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IV. The Wondrous Child

(Col. i 1-3)

The first two lines are fragmentary. They seem to refer to bodily marks which will characterize the newborn child. Two of them will appear on the fiat (or palm) of his hand; others, resembling lentils, elsewhere, and several very small spots on his thigh.—The reference to 'lentils' is particularly interesting (though it has somewhat puzzled previous editors) because 'lentils' is the common term in Greek, Latin, and Italian for freckles. (1)

(3-11)

[After tw]o years (2) he will know this from that (3). ... When he reaches puberty, he will be like .... [and will, not be like (the average) m]an who knows nothing until he has mastered (4) the (usual) couple of (lit three) (text) books.(5)

He will then acquire shrewdness and commonsense. (Even) professional seers [will foreg]ather (6) to come to him on [their] knees. [For all their longevity and age, he will [surpass] both his father and his forebears. (7)

He will be possessed of counsel and shrewdness [and] will know what men keep secret. Moreover, his wisdom will go (forth) to all the peoples. (8) He will know the secrets of all the living, and all their schemes against him will be brought to an end. The turpitude (or, defection) (9) of all the living will be great, but it is his plans [that will prevail], inasmuch as he is the chosen of God. His birth and the (very) breath which he draws (10) [have been ordained by One] whose plans endure for ever (11). ...

* * *

(Col. ii 1-13)

The first twelve lines are fragmentary. There is a reference to something which befell men of old, children of corruption; (12) then to something bad; and then an obscure reference to (the) lentil. Just possibly, what is here stated is that a worse disaster awaits mankind than that which befell their corrupt ancestors in ancient times (i.e., at the Deluge); that all produce of the earth will go rank and bad, and that there will not be even a mess of lentils—one of the most common dishes in the Near East (13)—to eat. But this is, of course, simply a stab in the dark. There is then an allusion to something, evidently calamitous, which is yet to come, and this is followed, probably by way of contrast, by a repetition of the statement that the Wondrous Child draws his (very) breath [by the will of One whose plans endure] for ever, the implication being, of course, that he himself will be exempt from the doom which awaits the rest of mankind.

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[Lacuna of three lines]

Next, we find the isolated word, and cities. Since the ensuing clause begins, and they will be destroyed (the form of the verb indicating a masculine subject) and proceeds to a reference to the inhabitants [there]of, (14) what is here predicted is, in all likelihood, the imminent destruction of lands and cities and of those who dwell in them. In between comes a fragmentary clause ending, and by words. A tentative restoration of the whole passage might therefore be: [Kingdoms] and cities [will go down to their doom ..... and] the inhabitants [there]of [who have transgressed by deeds] and by words (15) will be destroyed.

(14-21)

We now come to the most obscure portion of the entire text. The following is a literal translation of the words that remain:

Waters will come to an end; .... will be destroyed; all these (16) will come .... will .... and all of [th]em will, have understanding like (that of) the (heavenly) Watch-ers. (17) 'His deed instead of his voice' (18)—on that basis will [every one of them] lay his foundation. His ski and his guilt (19) .... his breast .... holy beings and (heavenly) Watchers (20) .... a saying .... have they said about him. ...

The purport of these lines is anyone's guess. The statement that waters will come to an end (i.e., fail) accords with eschatological prophecies found elsewhere, so that there is a presumption that what are here being described are further features of the impending doom. The rest of the text will then depict the eventual regeneration of mankind, or the reward of the righteous. On the other hand, if-as has been suggested—the Wondrous Child is Noah rather than any messianic figure, these words may refer to the end of the Flood. (The rest would still depict the eventual regeneration of men.)

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Notes

The War of the Sons of Light and the Sons of Darkness

1. Since Cols, xv-xix largely repeat what has been said previously, it is apparent that our present text of this document really represents a compilation out of two different recensions. They are here distinguished as A and B respectively.

2. Literally, 'cut off the horn'. For a similar idiom, cp. Lam. 2.3.

3. I.e., the Greeks and their associates; cp. Gen. 10.2-5.

4. The Third Book of the Sibylline Oracles (334-40)-a basically Jewish work written around 140 B.C.—pre-diets a comet before the final disaster.

5. Cp. Isa. 60.20.

6. Jer. 30.7.

7. I.e., for the weeks in the year.

8. This diverges from normal Jewish usage, which recog-nized only 24 courses.

9. According to Num. 1.3, the minimum age for military service was 20 years; in Roman usage, it was 17. In The Manual of Discipline for the Future Congregation of Israel, twenty is regarded as the age of majority.

10. The war is to last forty years. The release occurs a the end of every seventh year, and lasts for one year.

11. Cp. Num. 1.3-4.

12. I.e., the children of Aram (Syria), mentioned in Gen. 10.23. (Togar is an error for Gether of the Scriptural text.)

13. Cp. Gen. 10.23.

14. I.e., the South Arabians; cp. Gen. 25.1-5.

15. Cp. Gen. 10.6-20.

16. The Heb. word for 'enlisted' comes from the same root as that for 'assembly'. For the military sense, cp. Isa. 13.3, etc.

17. In Hebrew, the word rendered 'enactments' (viz. te'udoth) resembles that for 'meeting' (viz. mo'ed).

18. These words have evidently fallen out of the text.

19. A play on the Biblical expression, 'memorial of the trumpet'; Lev. 23.24. Cp. also Num. 10.10.

20. Literally, 'of the slain', i.e., for giving the signal for slaughter.

21. Literally, 'the mysteries'. The idea is suggested, of course, by the mention of ambush.

22. I.e., withdraws (His troops).

23. A pun on the name Jerusalem, the Hebrew for 'peace' being shalom.

24. Merari was a son of Levi (Ex. 6.16, 19). According to rabbinic legend, the sons of Merari were entrusted with the transportation of the heavy portions of the Tabernacle, when Israel was wandering through the wilderness (cp. L. Ginzberg, Legends of the Jews, vol. iv [1911], p. 194). In line with this tradition 'Merari' may here denote the ordnance corps.

25. A crude pun on the name Merari, the Heb. for 'offering' being terumah. If the last two syllables are read backwards (in Hebrew) they somewhat resemble the first two of Merari!

26. Again a crude pun: 'thousand' is elef; 'God's wrath' is af el.

27. Another pun: 'hundred' is me'ah; 'from' is me'eth.

28. Certain letters of the motto, when combined, spell out the Hebrew word for fifty'. I have tried to reproduce this in the translation.

29. The ensign of a Roman manipulus included a shield, usually of silver, on which were represented the images of such warlike deities as Mars or Minerva; and, in Imperial times, of the emperors (Tacitus, Annals, i.43; Hist., i.41; iv.62) or of their favorites (Suetonius, Tiberius, 48; Caligula, 14). The specification in our text may have the earlier Roman usage in mind, bat it is clearly influenced also by Ps. 20.6: 'In the name of our God will we set up our banner(s)'.

30. We do not yet know what the Heb. term employed here really means.

31. The word for 'blade' also means 'flash'.

32. The Heb. for 'javelin' comes from a root which alse means 'spurt'.

33. Literally, 'the holy ones'. But the point is that this was also a term for 'warriors', who were consecrated for war; cp. Jer. 22.7; 51.27f.

34. Note that later (ix.4) the total attacking force is said to comprise 28,000 men.

35. Literally, 'mild-mouthed'.

36. In the Roman army, service in the cavalry was the privilege of the upper class.

37. In Num. 4.3, fifty is the maximum age for military service; in Roman usage, it was 46.

38. These would correspond to the fabri and similar technicians of the Roman army.

39. Literally, 'gates', but what are meant are the spaces (intervalla) between the massed lines—a regular feature of Roman military formations.

40. These would correspond to the Roman scutati, opposed to the cavalry (equites); cp. Livy, xxviii, 2.

41. It has been contended that in the days of the Second Temple, priests were not in fact anointed. But no de-ductions as to the date of our document should be drawn from that fact, for the expression is purely met aphorical and may therefore be a survival in language from earlier usage. Exactly comparable is our own ex-pression, 'a blot on the scutcheon'; no one carries scutcheon today.

42. In this section, the author employs a number of technical terms derived from Roman military strategy Since these would be unintelligible to the layman, have reproduced them by paraphrase. In identifying them, I have leaned heavily on Yigael Yadin's masterly interpretation.

43. Literally, 'rectangle', i.e., the Roman agmen quad-ratum.

44. I.e., the Roman testudo, a compact mass of troops advancing under cover of their uplifted shields joined together in the form of a testudo, or tortoise, to protect themselves from the shafts of the enemy. This formation was also called 'tower' (turns).

45. I.e., the Roman forfex, or 'scissors-formation'.

46. I.e., the Roman cuneus, or 'wedge-formation'.

47. Literally, 'slight flexing of the bow'.

48. I.e., the Roman alae (equitum).

49. Cp. Enoch 40.9-10.

50. This is part of the exhortation ('pep-talk') delivered to the troops before battle, i.e., the Roman allocutio.

51. Deut. 20.3-4.

52. I.e., solstices and equinoxes.

53. Cp. I Sam. 17.

54. I.e., the seven nations dispossessed by the Israelites when they conquered Canaan.

55. The Hebrew words (necha'e ruah) are usually rendered 'crushed in spirit' (cp. Isa. 66.2). But it is apparent that our author interpreted them rather from a like-sounding word (nechim) which occurs in Psalm 35.15 and which the ancient Aramaic version (Targum) indeed understood to mean 'base, impious'. (The expression is similarly employed in the Hymn of the Initiants.)

56. The restoration is based on Isa. 42.13. Cp. also Ex. 15.3.

57. Literally, 'Thou magnifiest and hallowest Thyself. The phrase is especially significant because it echoes the opening words of the famous Kaddish-doxology, one of the earliest elements of the Jewish liturgy. It derives from Ezek. 38.23.

58. Ezek. 38. See the General Introduction, p. 27.

59. The point lies in the double meaning of the word rendered 'holy beings', viz. (a) angels, (b) warriors; cp. above, note 33.

60. The restoration is based on the necessity of finding a heavenly counterpart to the earthly election of God's people as His fighting army.

61. The word rendered 'elect' also means 'picked troops' —a usage which occurs already in documents of the eighteenth century B.C. from Mari, on the Upper Euphrates.

62. Literally, 'lovingkindnesses'. What the writer has in mind, I think, is something like a Roman Imperial decree imposing peace and promising prosperity.

63. The writer uses the rare Hebrew word heret, which occurs only in Ex. 32.4 with the here inappropriate sense of 'graving tool'. Perhaps he chose this recondite term to suggest the Latin charta, somewhat in the sense of 'charter'.

64. Ps. 24.11.; Zech. 14.5.

65. Ibidem; in both passages God is called 'the Mighty One'.

66. Judges 5.12.

67. Ezek. 39.10.

68. Num. 24.18.

69. Gen. 49.8.

70. II Sam. 1.19, 25.

71. Cp. Num. 24.8.

72. Deut. 32.42.

73. Ecclus. 36.14.

74. Jer. 49.32.

75. Cp. Zech. 2.14(10).

76. Ps. 48.12.

77. Isa. 60.11.

78. Isa. 49.23.

79. Isa. 42.11 (read as in the Qumran Scroll of Isaiah, with a slight variation from the standard [Masoretic] text).

80. Isa. 52.1; Psalms of Solomon, 11.8.

81. Pss. 57.6, 12; 108.6.

82. Cp. Manual of Discipline, iii.13ff.

83. I.e., Thy Law.

84. For the word u-lehagbir in the manuscript, I emend u-lehagbiah.

85. E.g., to renewed vigor. (There is a small gap in the text.)

86. The word is perhaps an imitation of the Latin velites (as if from velox, 'swift'), the light-armed front-line troops.

87. Cp. the beginning of the Hymn of the Initiants.

88. Cp. Ps. 7.7.

89. See above, n. 1.

90. Cp. Jer. 30.7.

91. This is 'the priest anointed for leading in war'. The office is mentioned in Mishnah, Sotah, VIII, 2, where he is described as addressing the troops in Hebrew (rather than Aramaic or any other vernacular). Cp. also Talmud, Yama, 72b, 73a.

92. Or, 'all the structure of their being.

93. Cp. Jer. 25.29.

94. Cp. Num. 10.10.

95. There is perhaps a pun in the original, for the word rendered 'gold' could also mean 'diligent'. The sense will thus be that the truly adept are tested like gold against dross.

96. Cp. Lev. 10.lff.

97. Michael guards Israel; cp. Dan. 12.1ff.

98. Cp. Isa. 60.19.

99. Literally, 'wave his hand'.

100. I.e., to destroy everything unacceptable and offensive to the God of Israel.

101. Cp. I Chron. 29.11.

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The Rout Of Belial

1. Literally, 'its interpretation at the end of days'—a regular formula when a Scriptural text is explicated in an eschatological sense.

2. Restored ad sensum; cp. Florilegium, iv.3-4; Analytical Index, D. 1.

3. If this refers to God's consuming fire, cp. Isa. 26.11; 29.9; 30.30; 66.13, etc. Luke 12.49; II Peter 3.10-13; Gospel of Thomas, §9; Pistis Sophia, ch. 141. But it could equally well refer to the inflammatory teachings of the 'men of Belial'.

4. Probably an allusion to the description of false prophets in Jer. 23.32; Zeph. 3.4.

5. Literally, 'the Lot of Righteousness'; cp. War, xiii.9.

6. Cp. Consolation, 9.

7. Cp. 'Zadokite' Document, ii.9, 13; ix.4-5.

8. Cp. Hymns x.14; xi.29.

9. Restored ad sensum.

10. What Allegro reads tortuously as wnslw (?)—a word barely intelligible—is surely wnslh, 'and it shall be forgiven'.

11. Cp. 'Zadokite' Document, ii.9; iv.5.

12. The obvious restoration is [hqq], 'engraved', as in Manual, x.l; Hymns i.24. The text must here have named the mortal to whom the contents of the tablets were imparted for transmission. The obvious candidate is Enoch; cp. Enoch 68.1; Testament of Simeon, 5.4, etc. But there are also traditions that the book was originally given to Adam, who gave it to Enoch, who gave it to Noah: Samaritan Asatir II. 7, 44; L. Zunz, Ges. Schriften (1885), i.13.

13. This probably refers to Enoch's translation to the far ends of the earth; cp. Enoch 12.1; 56.2; 65.2; Memoirs of the Patriarchs, i.24.

14. The interpretation is suggested, of course, by the sounding of the ram's horn at the original giving of the Law on Sinai; cp. Exod. 20.13, 16, 19.

15. I.e., repeating the apostasy (in the worship of the Golden Calf) at Sinai.

16. Again with reference to the events at Sinai. The imperfectly preserved verb may perhaps have been yish-[kehu], 'they will forget'.

17. Allegro takes 'Jacob' to be the subject of the sentence, but this makes no sense, for it is obviously God who, in the last days, will be 'treading out the winepress where the grapes of wrath are stored'—an eschatological interpretation of Isa. 63.2. 'Jacob' must therefore be the end of the preceding clause. Their juice' (Heb. nisham) is restored from Isa. 63.3, 6.

18. Cp. Dan. 11.34. This is, of course, 'the terrible swift sword'; cp. especially Ezek. 21.8, 9, 13; Enoch 50.2; 90.19; 91.12; 95.7.

19. Tentatively I restore: [sa]rah; cp. Dan. 12.1; War, i.12; xv.l—the standard precursor of the final judgment; cp. especially Manual, viii.1. Not impossibly, our author fancifully connected the Hebrew word sapiah, 'casual grain, leavings', with mispah in Isa. 5.7, usually interpreted as 'bloodshed' or 'lawlessness'.

20. For this eschatological terminus technicus (derived from Dan. 11.35; 12.10), cp. Commentary on Psalm 37.15; Florilegium, ii.l; cp. also Manual, xvi.15; xvii.l.

21. Restored on the basis of 'Zadokite' Document, vi.10. Reference to the 'teacher' is peculiarly appropriate in view of the comparison of the broad masses to children.

22. For the sentiment, cp. Jer. 4.22.

23. For Allegro's ['a]meru, i.e., '[they s]aid', I read: [yisram he]meru, 'they altered their nature, changed character, bartered their instincts', after Hymns ii.36: They change for wild delusion/folly the sound nature/ spirit which Thou hast vouchsafed'.

24. In the Manual for the Future Congregation, i.7, the 'Book of Study' (Hgu, or Hgy) is prescribed as required reading; cp. also 'Zadokite' Document, x.6; xii.2. (The missing verb would have been ma'asu.)

25. This is a tentative supplement, based on the ensuing quotation.

26. The manuscript is here indistinct Allegro reads [l]hl'yn, which certainly seems to be warranted by the photograph, but which introduces a word unparalleled elsewhere in this form. He connects it with the Arabic and Nabatean l-'-n, 'curse', i.e., 'hi order to bring a curse upon Israel'. It seems to me, however, that if the reading is indeed correct, the word might rather be regarded as an artificial coinage from Heb. la'anah, Vormwood', in the sense of 'poison'. In the Bible that word is used metaphorically of the perversion of justice and righteousness (Jer. 9.4; 23.15). We might then compare the words attributed to Jesus in the apocryphal Gospel of the Egyptians (quoted by Clement of Alexandria, Stromat., iii, 6.1-2); 'Eat every plant, but do not eat the one which contains bitterness'.

27. Cp. Psalms of Solomon, 17.15-16: 'They that loved the synagogues of the pious [i.e., Hasidim] fled from them like sparrows that fly from their nest. They wandered in deserts, that their lives might be saved from harm'.

28. The reference is perhaps to Hos. 9.11—but this is sun-ply a guess.

29. The meaning of this musical notation is disputed. Some think it means on an eight-stringed instrument.

30. I.e., the period which will follow the eschatological 'seventh week (of years)' and which will be characterized by the reassertion of righteousness and vengeance on the wicked; cp. Enoch 91.12f.; Testament of Levi, ch. 18.

31. Cp. 'Zadokite' Document, i.18; Hymns ii.15, 32; Commentary on Nahum, ii.7.

32. Restored ad sensum.

33. The Hebrew expression, 'ose ha-yahad, lit. 'who make the commune', sounds a little unusual, but the photograph seems to warrant this reading, and it is not more odd than the words, we-ye'asu kullam 'aguddah 'ahat, 'and they shall all of them make (i.e., form) one band', in the Standing Prayer ('Amidah) for the High Holy-days (S. Singer, ed., Authorized Daily Prayerbook [1890], p. 239)—a prayer believed to be ancient.

34. I restore [sabelu] to vindicate the identification of the pious with the bullocks which the partisans of Belial have been slaughtering.

35. Cp. Ezek. 20.34f.

36. Restoring: [neg]'ie; cp. Manual, iii.14; Commentary on Habakkuk, ix.11; Hymns xi.8; frag, iii.16, etc.

37. Cp. Ezek. 20.38; Dan. 11.35; 12.10.

38. See above, n. 31.

39. Restored ad sensum.

40. Cp. Ezek. 21.8. The concluding phrase is perhaps toil be restored [wa-'asher lo' hesi]ru 'orlot 'and who have not removed the foreskins'—the expression being understood metaphorically, as in Jer. 4.4.

41. See Analytical Index, E. 2 (a).

42. The meaning of the Scriptural verse is disputed; the text may even be corrupt. (NEB resorts to an ingenious emendation.) Since the word qedoshim, 'holy ones (saints)', is a technical term for celestial beings (see Analytical Index F. 1 [b]), our author may have taken the words, the qedoshim -which are on earth, in a very pointed sense, to mean 'the earthly counterparts of the heavenly beings'. In the succeeding clause, we'addire kol hefsi bam, I think our author took kol absolutely, i.e., 'the general, all men', and joined it to 'addire rather than to hefsi (i.e., 'all my delight'). In the Biblical context, this was a protest against the worship of heathen gods, and the verse meant properly, As for those deities (recognized) in the land, and those who are deemed majestic by all with whom I consort (cp. Arabic hafaza).

43. Cp. Jer. 33.6.

44. Heb. 'asafsuf means properly, 'camp-followers'; cp. Num. 11.4.

45. Restored from the context. For 'the exponent of the Law', see Analytical Index, B. 2 (a).

46. Literally, 'every man will be at his post'; cp. 'Zadokite' Document, iv.12.

47. The metaphor is taken from the process of refining silver. For the general idea, cp. Manual, iii.24; Florilegium, i.8. This reflects the Iranian doctrine of the eschatological struggle between the ashovano, or partisans of Right (Asha) and the dregvato, those of the Lie (Druj); see above, p. 24.

48. Not impossibly, our author fancifully took the Heb. word la-nesah, 'for ever', in the alternative sense of 'for victory', his interpretation thus conveying the general sense that depressed hearts were awaiting their eventual triumph.

49. Cp. Dan. 11.35; 12.10; War, xvi.15; xvii.l.

50. If the reading, ]lmim is right, the only possible restoration would seem to be [nich]lamim. This is based on Ps. 74.21.

51. A possible, but speculative, restoration might be: ['asher lo' yistape]ah li-Beli'al, 'anyone who has not attached himself to Belial'. For the verb, cp. 'Zadokite' Document, iv.11; Isa. 14.1 (though with the preposition 'al, not I-); I Sam. 26.19 (with b-). But the repetition of 'Belial' seems clumsy.

52. For the sense, cp. Isa. 6.13.

53. Cp. Hymns iv.12; Florilegium, i.8. Cp. also Hymns ii.17.

54. Cp. Job 18.9.

55. Cp. Manual, iii.24-25. The Angel of Truth is the Hebrew equivalent of the Iranian Asha, who will aid Ahura Mazdah in the final discomfiture of Angra Mainyu (Ahriman).

56. Cp. Joel 2.20.

57. Cp. Ps. 37C, i.9.

58. See Analytical Index, F. 1 (b, d); 1. Tentatively, I restore [ki' mibtahamoh (cp. Ps. 40.5) or ma'uzzamoh (cp. Hymns x.23) bi-fel]'ae El u-qedoshaw samu.

59. Cp. Isa. 11.12; 56.8; Ezek. 11.17; Micah 2.12.

60. The translation of this Scriptural verse is a notorious problem; the text is probably corrupt. This, however, is how our author evidently understood it.

61. See Analytical Index, B. 1.

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Weal And Woe: An Exhortation

1. The restoration is, to be sure, but one of several possibilities. At the beginning of line 5 I read ['a]mito (i.e., bene 'amito), and regard the enigmatic ]sh of line 6 as the remnant of some such phrase as [we'-awonam mi-yadam yebaqqe]sh.

2. Cp. Num. 14.22; Job 19.3; Neh. 4.6.

3. Cp. Dan. 11.15.

4. Cp. I Chron. 29.15; Enoch 46.6.

5. Restoring provisionally, li-[bene 'ashama]h; cp. Hymns v.7; vi.30, viii.11.

6. Cp. Enoch 100.9-10; 102.1. See Analytical Index, F. 7, 8.

7. Cp. Isa. 40.6-8. For the sentiment, cp. also lb., 51.12; Job 8.12, Ps. 103.15.

8. Cp. I Sam. 16.21; II Sam. 17.20; Isa. 41.12; Ezek. 26.21.

9. Restored after I Chron. 29.18; Job 8.7.

10. I read the traces as hkmu; cp. Hymns i.35.

11. Restored from Pss. 105.27; 106.22.

12. Literally, 'His terror'; cp. Isa. 2.19, 21.

13. This expression is common in the Jewish prayer book, e.g., Singer, Authorized Daily Prayerbook (ed. 1890), pp. 74, 239.

14. Cp. Lam. 3.40.

15. For 'the way to life' cp. Jer. 21.8.

16. Allegro's reading, shama'ti banay yassel, 'I have heard, my children, Let Him deliver', seems too abrupt to be plausible, and also to be unwarranted by the traces in the manuscript. I read the entire passage thus: we-lammah tittenu [nafshe]kem li-she'o[l u-besare]kem [li-nega'e mish]pat shama'ti banu etc. Cp. Hymns x.34. The 'hearing' evidently refers to a revelation; for an exact parallel, cp. Enoch 92.18, 19; 94.1.

17. Cp. Pss. 105.28; 107.11.

18. Cp. Manual, i.13; iii.11.

19. I read the traces as ketubah, rather than, with Allegro, h(?)at(?) imah.

20. Cp. Isa. 30.7-8. The Heb. word could also mean 'engraved', sc. on the Tablets.

21. Restored after Ps. 84.11.

22. Restoring, purely exempli gratia, [ba—boqer'ba-boqer tehi] yir'ato as a contrast to I'tt, which I interpret as le-'ittot.

23. Cp. Ps. 91.3. The 'fowler's snare' is here the false doctrine of apostatic preachers; cp. Testimonia, 14.

24. For the sentiment, cp. Ps. 139.12; Job 34.22. I restore ad sensum: we-'en hoshek yi[ssate]ru sham bene' ash-amah.

25. Restoring provisionally hu [yabi (or similar verb) neg]i'o (common spelling in the Scrolls for nig'eo).

26. For this claim to special knowledge as the basis of an admonition, cp. Enoch 91.5, 93.2; 103.2; 104.10.

27. Restored after Isa. 10.3. Cp. also Enoch 97.3; 102.1.

28. For the sentiment, cp. Ps. 31.20.

29. For this warning against the complacent belief of the wicked that they will be immune from final judgment, cp. Enoch 106.7.

30. Restoring, [mebaqqe]shah.

31. Restoring tentatively, yanhilah. (Allegro's yekilah, 'will sustain her (!)', makes little sense, and seems unwarranted by the manuscript.)

32. Cp. similarly, Isa. 45.17.

33. The manuscript is here indistinct. (Allegro's y'al introduces an unparalleled form. I have thought of ybtl, 'cease, desist', but the traces seem to preclude it.)

34. Literally, '[with heart of] guile', restoring [be-leb] mirmah.

35. Heb. yahzikenah is here used in the post-Biblical sense of the word.

36. The Heb. word can also mean 'blandishments', but, as a parallel to 'guile', better sense is obtained by deriving it from h-l-q II, 'divide', i.e., 'double-mindedness', than from h-l-q I, 'be smooth'.

37. The manuscript's ttn seems a scribal error for tntn.

38. What we have here is the famous rabbinic doctrine of Zekuth Aboth, the 'merit of the fathers' (especially the Biblical patriarchs), which constitutes a kind of moral credit with God on which their descendants can draw: cf. Mishnah, 'Eduyoth, ii.9; Aggadath Bereshith, ch. 10. See fully, S. Schechter, Aspects of Rabbinic The-ology (1909; reprinted 1961), pp. 170-85; S. Levy, Original Virtue (1907).

39. See above, n. 26.

40. Cp. Gen. 50.15; Hos. 12.15; Ps. 28.4. (I read [yash]ib for the [yash]ub of the editio princeps.)

41. Cp. Prov. 20.27.

42. See above, n. 26.

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The Last Jubilee

1. As elsewhere in the Scrolls, a pious substitute for the ineffable name YHWH in the Scriptural text.

2. For such eschatological interpretations—a leading feature of the 'commentaries' from Qumran—cf. Comm, on Isaiah, on 5.10; 10.28-32; 30.18; Comm, on Habakkuk, on 2.8, etc.

3. For this sense of Heb. deror cf. Lev. 26.10; Jer. 34.15, 17; Ezek. 46.17. Cp. also Akkadian duraru, which refers especially to manumission, being written with an ideogram which means properly, 'go home to mother'.

4. Ps. 84.4; Prov. 26.2. In rabbinic literature the word sometimes denotes a free-flying bird in general, e.g., TB, Shab. 106a; Tosefta, Nega'im, viii.3.

5. For this concept, cf. Manual, iii.25; xi.7-8; Hymns iii.21; xi.11-12; frag, ii.10; Enoch 6.2; 13.8; 14.3; 101.1. The expression, 'sons of heaven', recurs in Hymns iii.22; frag, ii.10; War, iv.22; xi.8. Note also that in OT, 'of heaven, celestial' sometimes means 'eternal': A. B. Ehrlich, Mikra ki-feshuto (repr., New York, 1969), i.378 (on Deut. 33.40).

6. Cf. Deut. 10.9; 18.2; Jos. 13.33; Ezek. 44.28.

7. The same interpretation was given by R. Alexandr(a)i (third cent. C.E.), as quoted by R. Samuel b. Nahman; cf. Midrash Tanhuma, Be-Har, §1 (on the Law of the Jubilee). Not impossibly, our author referred the words, 'owner of heaven and earth' (prospectively), to Abraham rather than (actually) to God.

8. Correspondingly, Heb. hob, 'debt', comes to mean 'sin' (as similarly in the familiar 'forgive us our debts' in the Lord's Prayer).

9. The concept of the ten 'weeks' of years is developed in Enoch 93; 91.12-17.

10. For this expression, cf. Manual, i.9; ii,16; iii.13, 24, 25; War, passim.

11. J- T. Milik reads: who are in the lot of Mel(?) [chi]zedek, but the manuscript is indistinct.

12. 'Era (Heb. qes)' or 'Season (Heb. mo'ed) of Favor is a technical term in the eschatology of the Scrolls cf. Hymns xv.15; frag, ix.15; DID I, 34, iii.4-5.

13. Literally, 'holy ones'. For this as a term for celestial beings, cf. Dan. 4, 10, 14, 20, etc.; 'Zadokite' docu-ment, xx.8; Hymns iii.22; iv.25; x.35; xi.12; War, xii.4, 7, 8; xviii.2; Oration, iv.l; Enoch 39.5; 45.1; 61.12.

14. For the concept that angels execute the final judgment cf. Manual, iv.12; 'Zadokite' Document, ii.6; War, xiii.12; xiv.10; Hymns iii.35; Enoch 53.3; 56.1; 62.11; 100.4; TB Shab, 88a, etc.

15. Cp. Heb. 4.7 ('saying in David'). For the designation of the Psalter as 'the songs of David', cf. the conclu-sion of the Qedushah in the Sabbath Morning Service of the Synagogue: Singer (ed. 1890), p. 138. (In point of fact, the psalm here quoted is not ascribed to David.)

16. Literally, gods. For 'gods' = 'celestial beings, angels', cf. Liturgy of the Angels (b), 5, 7; Hymns x.8; frag. iii.3, 10; War, i.10, 11; xiv.15, 16; xv.14; xvii.7; Ora-tion, iv.l.

17. The words, 'return thou on high', are usually referred to God; our author refers them to Israel, which is bid den to return to its patrimony, as men did at the peril-odic jubilee. (Although the point is irrelevant to our author's exegesis, it may be suggested that the words We-'aleha la-marom subah, in the traditional text are really a misvocalization of the original We-'aleh Ia-marom sºbeh, 'go up in triumph [lit. to the height] with captives in Thy train'—for which expression cf. Ps. 68.19).

18. I.e., from r-s-h II (Lev. 26.41; Isa. 40.2).

19. For this expression, cf. War, i.5; iv.2; xii.4.

20. In the context of a judicial tribunal, the word 'show defiance' (viz. ha-mamerim) immediately suggests the technical expression, 'defiant elder (zaqen mamreh)' applied in Mishnah, Sanhedrin 11.1 to one such who refuses to abide by the rulings of the supreme court and is therefore sentenced to execution. The words may therefore be read as a polemic against what were deemed the apostatic priests in Jerusalem. At the end of the sentence I restore le-'a[wweth mispat], after Ps. 146.9, Job 34.12, rather than la-'a[soth ris'ah], 'to commit wickedness', as proposed by Milik.

21. The expression derives from Isa. 61.3, but the words 'ele sedeq, which in the Scriptural context mean 'terebinths (sturdy oaks) of righteousness', are fancifully interpreted as 'angels [lit. gods] of righteousness'. The Targum in loc. renders similarly, 'chieftains'.

22. The text is indistinct. It seems, to my eyes, to read: [ ]id '[ ] Beli'al, which I would tentatively restore: [yasm]id 'E[l 'adat(?)] Belial, after Manual, iv.19; v.19; Hymns xiv.16. On the ultimate defeat of Belial, see Analytical Index, E. 2 (i).

23. The text is again indistinct. Accepting Milik's reading, whp[ ], I would restore we-hape[quddah]. This too is a technical term in the eschatology of the Scrolls; cf. Manual, iii.18; iv.19; 'Zadokite' Document, vii.21; xix.10, etc.; Comm, on Isa. 5.10. The expression derives from Isa. 10.3; Hos. 9.7; Micah 7.4. Here it would also echo the employment of the corresponding verb in Lev. 26.16—part of the commination which follows on the Law of the Jubilee.

24. The subsequent quotation from Isa. 52.7, where the similar word salom (peace) is interpreted in this sense, shows that we must here restore ha-[sillum], rather than ha-[haregah], 'of slaughter', as proposed by Fitz-myer and others, on the basis of Hymns xv.17 (derived from Jer. 12.3). For the expression, 'Day of Retribution', cf. Deut. 32.33 (according to LXX, Samaritan and a fragment from Qumran itself); Hos. 9.7. In the latter passage the term stands parallel to 'days of visitation' (pequdah), thus supporting my res-toration of that word at the beginning of the sentence.

25. Provisionally, I follow Milik's restoration.

26. The text reads, indistinctly and defectively, Dn[ ]. Milik ingeniously restores this to read Dan[iel], and then finds the appropriate quotation in Dan. 9.26. This has the added advantage of providing another 'support' ('asmakta) from the Holy Writings, among which the Book of Daniel is reckoned in the Hebrew Bible. Not impossibly, however, the initial letter which Milik reads as D is really the vestige of H, in which case we may restore Hn[wk], i.e., Enoch, and find the relevant passage in Enoch 91.15; '... in the tenth week (of years), in the seventh part thereon there will occur the great eternal judgment, when He will execute judgment in company with (or, upon) the angels'. Enoch, it may be added, is similarly cited in the pseudepigraphic Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs; Simeon, 5.4; Levi, 10.5; Dan., 5.6; Naphtali, 4.1; Benjamin, 9.1.

27. Cf. Isa. 37.18.

28. For this concept, cf. Analytical Index, E. 1-2. (I read here: be-kol qisse ha-'o[lam] be-'emeth le-'i[ttim, o la'eth (ba'-eth; cf. Manual, viii.19)]).

29. The word sarah is here a noun, meaning 'defection', as in Isa. 1.5; 31.6. It counterbalances the previous reference to 'turning away (defecting) from God's statutes'. The sequel shows that the subsequent clause, which is torn away in the manuscript, must have said, en revanche, something about the restitution of the reign of righteousness (or, of God). These two contrasting statements are made in exposition of a Scrip rural text the words of which are no longer preserved in our tattered fragment. It may perhaps be suggested —though admittedly, as no more than a shot in the dark—that, since our author has been drawing heavily on Isaiah, ch. 61, the words in question were those of v.3: '(The Lord has sent me) ... to give them sashes [lit. garlands; Heb. pe'er] in place of ashes (Heb. 'epher)'.

30. For this expression (corresponding to the Iranian ashovano), cf. Manual, iii.20, 22; ix.4.

31. Cf. Jer. 34.18; Manual, v.21f.; viii.10; 'Zadokite' Document, xv.6. In Lev. 26.15f., part of the commination which follows on the Law of the Jubilee, the visitation of God is threatened on those who abrogate the Covenant.

32. The expression derives from Isa. 8.11. It recurs in 'Zadokite' Document, viii.16; xix.29.

33. This interpretation can only be inferred, since the text is incomplete. For the royal fanfare, cf. Ps. 47.8 (still recited in the service of the synagogue before the first blowing of the ram's horn at New Year); Num. 23.21; Ps. 98.6.

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The New Covenant

1. The word b'dy of the original text is clearly an error for b'dny (or b'dn).

2. Restoring le-he[rawo]th; cf. Isa. 34.7; Ps. 23.5.

3. Cp. Isa. 43.3.

4. Cp. Gen. 1.14-18.

5. Cp. Ecclus. 42.23; 43.10.

6. Literally, 'understood'.

7. A technical expression for the future age; cp. War, xv.15; frag. ix.8.

8. Cp. Ex. 24.16-17.

9. Literally, 'fundaments, rudiments'. The word is used in Samaritan to denote the elemental hosts that were believed to be present at the revelation on Mount Sinai. Our author, however, employs the term in a somewhat different sense, implying that the essence of God's glory and the lofty eminences of eternity were then made manifest to Israel. (We must read YeSODe, not YiSSuRe, since the word is contrasted with Ma'aLe, i.e., 'foundations' with 'heights'.)

10. I.e., a new Moses. The lawgiver was known in later Jewish literature as 'the faithful shepherd'; cp. Ex. 3.1. Cp. also John 10.14.

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I. The Messianic King

1. This was the way in which many of the ancient interpreters explained the baffling Hebrew word Shiloh, which can here scarcely denote the place of that name. They took it as the equivalent of shelo, 'whose', i.e, he whose it is.

2. Literally, 'sovereign, wielder of sovereignty'.

3. Literally, 'the occupant'.

4. These words have been inserted in order to clarify the sense for English readers. The Hebrew word, hoq, 'statute', is frequently conjoined in the Old Testament with berith, 'covenant', e.g., II Kings 17.15; Pss. 50.16. 105.10. For a similar interpretation of the Scriptural verse, cp. 'Zadokite' Document, vi, 3 (above, p. 73).

5. Cp. II Sam. 7.11-16; Ps. 89.3-4, 29, 36.

6. This interpretation is based on the fact that the ex-pression, 'that which issues from between the feet' is used in Deut. 28.57 as a euphemism for 'progeny' The ancient Greek and Aramaic versions understood our passage in the same way.

7. Cp. Jer. 23.5; 33.15; Zech. 3.8; 6.12.

8. There is a small gap in the text. As an approximate restoration, I read: shmrh [YHWH bkol hdorot wg]mrh (or, [wn]srh?) 'm anshe hyhd. Cp. II Sam 23.5. For the general sense, cp. Luke 1.69, 72.

9. It is interesting to find in the Hebrew the same word (knst), the Syriac cognate of which was later adopted by the Christians to designate their own communion.

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II. Testimonia,- Proof-Texts Of The Messianic Era

A. The Commitment And The Promise

1. Written in archaic script.

2. The received (Masoretic) text reads, 'I have heard'.

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C. The Star Of Jacob

3. Literally, 'he whose eye is perfect'. The received (Masoretic) text contains the unique Hebrew word satam, of uncertain meaning. Our author substituted for it the 'correction', shehatem, in line with several ancient interpreters.

4. Literally, 'knowledge, lore'.

5. The passage is cited again in a Messianic sense in 'Zadokite' Document, vii, 19 (above, p. 76) and in War, xi, 6-7 (p. 413). The same interpretation appears also in the ancient Aramaic Versions (Targumim) and was adopted by many Jewish expositors. 6 The Scriptural text reads: 'It shall smite the brow of Moab and batter all the children of Sheth'. The latter term properly denoted the Shutu, an early nomadic tribe. But our author evidently identified it with the Hebrew word sh'eth, 'uproar', thus giving the verse a wider sense. The same interpretation was adopted by Jeremiah (48.45); see above, p. 110, n. 33. Not impossibly, the same Moab was likewise interpreted in a larger sense by being connected with the word 'oyeb, 'enemy'—a fanciful interpretation suggested also by several ancient Jewish commentators.

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D. The Role Of The Priest

7. This follows the text of the Greek (Septuagint) Version. The word is missing in the received Jewish (Masoretic) recension.

8. Heb. singular, i.e., 'Levi', and so throughout

9. Heb. 'Thine Urim and Thy Thummim'—emblems of the high priest. But the words were anciently interpreted as plurals of 'or, 'light' and torn, 'perfection', and it is in this extended sense that our author evidently understood them. Indeed, the compound term, Or-Tom was coined by the Brotherhood to denote the peculiar 'illumination' which they claimed; see above, p. 21.

10. Heb. 'whom Thou didst test at Massah'. It has long been pointed out by commentators that there is in fact nothing about the incident at Massah recorded in Ex. 17.5-7 to connect it specifically with a testing of the levites. The word, however, itself means 'testing', and it is therefore probable that our author—and perhaps even the original writer—intended it only as a common noun and not as a place-name.

11. Heb. 'with whom Thou didst contend (enter suit) by the waters of Meribah'. Here, again, there is no ostensible relationship between the incidents at Meribah recorded in Ex. 17.5-7 or Num. 20.3, 13, 24 and any trial of the levites. The word, however, means simply 'contention, suit', so that here too it is probable that the author intended it only as a common noun, in which case he would be referring figuratively to trial by waters of ordeal (cp. Num. 5.17).

12. The Masoretic text and the Ancient Versions read, 'They shall teach (Heb. yoru) Thy judgments to Jacob'. But in changing this to the very similar Hebrew word (ya'iru) meaning 'they shall bring the light', our author is not merely blundering; he is harking back to the allegorical interpretation of 'Thine Urim' in the preceding lines; see above, n.9.

13. In the Scriptural context, these lines refer to the sacrificial functions of the levites. Here, however, they are understood in a figurative sense: obedience to the Torah (Law) is equivalent to setting a pleasant savour in the nostrils of God, and wholehearted devotion to the presentation of a whole burnt offering upon His altar.

14. Written in archaic script.

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E. The Discomfiture Of The Impious

15. A Jewish tradition, hitherto known only from later sources, says that the Alenw-prayer, one of the most prominent elements of the liturgy (S. Singer, Authorized Daily Prayerbook, p. 76), was composed by Joshua upon entering the Holy Land, and the 'Al ken nekavveh, which now serves as its continuation, after Achan had confessed his guilt respecting the appropriation of forbidden booty after the sack of Jericho (Jos. 7.1-26). Joshua is said also to have intoned a lengthy hymn of praise after defending the Gibeonites (Sepher ha-Yashar, 135b-136a), and is likewise credited with the authorship of the Second Benediction in the traditional Grace after Meals (Talmud, Berachoth, 48b). Samaritan tradition similarly attributes to him one of the cardinal prayers of the Defter (i.e., Greek diphthera, 'codex'), the earliest element of the liturgy (A. E. Cowley, The Samaritan Liturgy [1909], pp. 4f.); while in the mediaeval Samaritan-Arabic Book of Joshua, several prayers by that hero are interspersed in the narrative. Fragments of hymns (or psalms) attributed to Joshua have indeed been found at Qumran.

16. The Masoretic text adds, 'even Jericho'. Our author omits the words in order to accommodate the Scriptural passage to the rebuilding of Jerusalem!

17. Cp. Hos. 9.8; Ps. 91.3.

18. In Gen. 49.5 the expression, 'instruments of violence' is used in connection with the brothers Simeon and Levi. Hence, the reference here would most naturally be to a pair of brothers, but precisely who cannot yet be determined with certainty. Allegro ingeniously suggests that the reference is to Aristobulus II and Hyrcanus II, the two sons of Alexander Jannaeus, to the latter of whom Caesar indeed gave permission, in 47 B.C., to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem (Josephus, Ant., XIV, 8.5; 10.5; War, I, 10.3). Alternatively, we may perhaps think of Phasael and Herod, sons of Antipater, who were appointed by their father governors of Jerusalem and Galilee respectively (Josephus, Ant., XIV, 9.2) and later (43 B.C.) by Mark Antony as tetrarchs in charge of the public affairs of the Jews (ib., XIV, 13.1). The reference to the building of the walls and towers of Jerusalem might then allude more specifically to Herod's repair of the walls and erection of the towers of Hippicus, Phasael and Mariamne after he had become king of Judaea in 30 B.C. The 'man of Belial' would, in this case, be either Antipater or Mark Antony.

19. This would be consonant with the fact that Phasael governed Jerusalem and its vicinity, and Herod the territory of Galilee. The former, the eldest son of Antipater, committed suicide after falling into the hands of the Parthian allies of Antigonus, last king of the Hasmoneans (Josephus, Ant., XIV, 13.10), while Herod was eventually afflicted by severe disease and a kind of madness, which Josephus (Ant., XVII, 6.5; War, I, 38.5) attributes to the vengeance of God. Thus, the curse of Joshua 6.26 (as our author understood it) may be said to have been fulfilled in their fate. It is true that Herod was not the youngest son of Antipater, as a strict application of the Scriptural text might seem to require, but the Hebrew word rendered 'lastborn' literally means no more than 'younger' and could therefore quite properly be referred to Herod ass the junior of Phasael.

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III. A 'Messianic1 Florilegium

1. The traditional Jewish (Masoretic) text reads in the plural, 'sons of perversity'.

2. Literally, 'a sanctuary of man'. Some scholars have thought that this means a man-made sanctuary (temple), in contrast to that which God's own hands are said to have established. But the true, metaphorical meaning is apparent on comparison with Manual, ix.6 (above, p. 63). The same sentiment is to be found in I Cor. 3.16-17 and in Eph. 2.19-22.

3. The 'stumbling blocks' are part of the eschatological picture painted in the Bible itself: cp. Dan. 11.33-34; Mal. 2.4-9.

4. Cp. Manual, i.23-24 (above, p. 45); 'Zadokite' Document, iv.13, 15; xii.2 (above, pp. 71, 85); War, passim.

5. The traditional (Masoretic) text has 'made', but our reading agrees with that of the Greek (Septuagint) Version; cp. also II Sam. 7.13; Ps. 89.5.

6. The verse is quoted in the same sense in Heb. 1.5.

7. Cp. 'Zadokite' Document, vi.11 (above, p. 73); Com-mentary on Habakkuk, 1.5; 2.2, 4 (above, pp. 318, 321f.). The (priestly) 'Expounder of the Law' and the 'Scion of David' constitute the two future 'messiahs' or 'anointed ones'.

8. In 'Zadokite' Document, vii.16 (above, p. 75), the 'fallen booth of David' is taken to connote the neglected Law (Torah).

9. This meaning is obtained by a different vocalization of the Hebrew word usually rendered, 'instructed me, reproved me'.

10. Note that, in popular speech, 'Israel' denoted the laity, in contradistinction to the priests and levites.

11. Cp. Manual, v.2; 'Zadokite' Document, iv.l (above, pp. 51, 70). This title of the priests derives from Ezek. 40.46; 43.19, etc.

12. These words could also be rendered (but less probably), 'who seek their own counsel', i.e., interests.

13. The future 'Anointed One' (Messiah) is likewise styled 'the Elect' in the Book of Enoch.

14. A standard eschatological epoch in the doctrine of the Scrolls; it is based on Dan. 11.35; 12.10. Cp. also Mal. 3.23.

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IV. The Wondrous Child

1. Cp. in this sense: Greek phakos (Plutarch, U.563A; 800B); phakodes (Hippocr., Epid., iii.1090); phakosis (Hephaest, Apotel., p. 18); Latin lenticula (Pliny, HN, 20, ii.4, 5); lentigo (Pliny, HN, 30, ii.5-a term still used in medicine for a kind of rash); Italian lentigine.

2. This restoration is suggested by Fitzmyer. It can be supported by the fact that Moses was likewise said to have first displayed his precocity in his third year; cp. Josephus, Ant., iii.9, 6-7; Philo, Vita Mosis i.5; L. Ginzberg, Legends of the Jews, V. 401, n. 64. The same is said of Jesus in the apocryphal Gospels of Thomas and of Matthew. In Jewish popular tradition, a child was not considered fully weaned until after two years. The successive stages of the Wondrous Child's development are similarly denned in Vergil's Fourth Eclogue, 13f., 17f., 26f., 37f.

3. Cp. Isa. 7.15, 16.

4. Lit., knows.

5. The identity of 'the three books' has proved a puzzle. Carmignac suggests that they may be the Book of Study [Hgw] mentioned in 'Zadokite' Document, X.6; xiii.2, together with the Manual of Discipline and the 'Zadokite' Document. But (a) Did all these documents exist together at the time our text was composed?

(b) Was the Wondrous Child a Qumranite, who had to be reared in what were, after all, manuals for a sect 'preparing the way' for his advent? Fitzmyer thinks the reference is general, not specific, i.e., to apocalyptic books such as the 'books of the living' in Enoch 47.3 or the 'heavenly tablets' mentioned ib. 81.1-2; Jubilees 30.22. This, however, I find unconvincing because, as I read the text, the three books are something which the average man has to master in order to be educated, but with which the Wondrous Child will be able to dispense. The books cited by Fitzmyer are, on the other hand, heavenly books to which the average mortal would not have access. Need the number 'three' be taken literally? My rendering presumes that no more is intended than 'two or three textbooks'. (The definite form of the noun would mean simply 'the usual [standard]' textbooks.)

6. Reading hzyn and 'rkwbt\h\vri\. (I am not assuming that the incomplete verb was [ytkn]swn, because the text has ]sn, not ]swn. My restoration is simply ad sensum.)

7. Restoring ad sensum, something like: wbabwhy wbabhtwhy y[tqp w'mhwn 'ark] hyn wzqynh.

8. Borrowed from I Kings 4.29-31 (of Solomon).

9. Heb. msrt, which can derive either from s-r-'/y, 'be rank, foetid, disgusting', or from s-w-r, 'defect, turn aside'.

10. Probably also in the sense of inspiration.

11. I take these words to refer to God (an adjectival clause), not to the Wondrous Child; cp. Isa. 11.3.

12. This expression recurs in 'Zadokite' Document, vi.-15; xiii.14; cp. also Jubilees 10.3; 15.26; John 17.12; II Thess. 2.3; Gospel of Nicodemus 20; Apoc. Peter, Akhmim frag., §2. The reference could be either to the rebel 'angels' of Gen. 6.1—4 or—I think more probably—to the generation of the Flood. In favor of the latter is the specific use of the same word, 'corrupt', in Gen. 6.11-12.

13. Cp. Gen. 23.34; Ezek. 4.9. This is the modern Arab mujedderah, a compound of lentils, onions, and rice stewed in olive oil. For the general idea, cp. Isa. 5.6; 7.23-24.

14. Restoring, ytbyn dy l[hwn].

15. Cp. Isa. 3.8.

16. It is not clear whether these words refer to calamities or to 'angels of destruction' who will come to execute judgment; cp. Manual, iv.12; 'Zadokite' Document, ii.6; War, xiii.12; xiv.10; Enoch 53.3; 56.1; TB Shab-bath 88a; etc.

17. A class of celestial beings mentioned in Daniel, Enoch, etc. and, at Qumran, in the 'Zadokite' Document and The Memoirs of the Patriarchs; see T. H. Gaster, in IDE, s.v. Watcher.

18. This sounds to me like a proverbial tag, 'Deeds, not words'. (The singular possessive suffix in the following 'his foundation' will be distributive, i.e., we should restore something like: [klhwn] yswdh 'Iwhy ysdwn. The suffix in 'Iwhy ['thereupon'] will refer to the maxim.) A contrasting idiom occurs in Enoch 94.6.

19. E.g., 'will vanish, be purged', cp. Enoch 107.1.

20. E.g., '[they will be like] any holy being or (like) the Watchers' (see above, n. 17).

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