by Geza Vermes
4QSe=4Q259
Three fragmentary columns of a leather scroll contain damaged sections of 1QS VII-IX. The text translated comes from columns II and III and represents an important doctrinal section of 1QS (VIII, 4-IX, II) in an abridged form. Not only are some of the interlinear additions to 1QS absent, suggesting their later editorial nature, but 4QSe (4Q259) jumps from 1QS VIII, 15 to IX, 12, thus omitting among other things the mention of the ‘Prophet and the Messiahs of Aaron and Israel’ (1QS IX, II). It would seem that the copyist of this manuscript substituted 4Q319 (the calendric document of Otot) for the text corresponding to 1QS X-XI.
For the editio princeps, see P. S. Alexander and G. Vermes, DJD, XXVI, 129-52.
II (1QS VII, 20-VIII, 10) ... And when [he has] comple[ted] [two years, the Congregation shall consider his case and he shall be inscribed in] his [ran]k and afterwards he may question [concerning the law. And anyone who has been in the Co]uncil of the Community until he has completed [ten years, and then his spirit turned back so that he has betrayed the Community and has departed from] the Congregation to walk [in the stubbornness of his heart, he shall return no more to the Council of the Community. And any of the m]en of the Community who [has shared with him his purity or his property], his sentence shall be [like his: he shall be expelled. In the Council of the Community there shall be twelve m]en [and] three priests, [perfect in all that has been revealed from the whole Law to practise] truth, righteousness and justice [loving-kindness and modesty towards one another. They shall preserve f]aith in the land with steadfastness and with humility [and a bro]ken [spirit.] And they shall atone for in[iquity by the practice of justice and the distress of te]sting. They shall walk with all men[ by the standard] of truth, by the rule [of the time. When these are in] Israel, the Council of the Community shall be established [to be an] ever[lasting plantation, a House of Holiness for Israel and an Assembly] of Supreme Holiness for Aaron. They shall be witnesses of the truth at the Judgement, and shall be the elect of good [will who atone for] the Lan[d and pay] to the wicked their reward. It shall be the tried wall, [that precious] cor[ner-stone. They shall] ne[ither rock, no]r sway from their place (Isa. xxviii, 16). It shall be a m[ost] Holy Dwelling for Aar[on f]or a Covenan[t of justice to offer up sweet] fragrance. It shall be a House of Perfection and Truth in [Israel that they may establish a Covenant according to the everlast]ing [precepts.] When they have been confirmed III (IQS VIII, 11-15; IX, 12 ...) [for two years in the perfection of way in the Foundation of the Community, they shall be set apart] as holy within the Council of the men [of the Community. And] the interpreter shall not con[c]eal [from them, out of fear of the spirit of apostasy, any of those things hidden from Israel which have been discover]ed by him. [And when] these shall become the Community, they shall separate fro[m the habit]ation [of unjust men and shall] go into the wil[derness to prepare there th]e way of the Truth; a[s] it is written, [In the wildernes]s pr[epare the way of... (?), make strai]ght in the desert a path for our God (Isa. xl, 3). This (path) is [the study of the Law which] He commanded by the hand of Moses. (The manuscript omits the section corresponding to 1QS VIII, 15b to ix, 11, and continues with ix, 12 on the same line.) These are the pre[cepts in which] the Mas[ter shall walk] in his commerce with all the living, according to the rule proper to every season and according to the wort[h of every man].
Entry into the Covenant
(4Q275)
Previously called 4QTohorot Ba, this tiny fragment represents a document describing the entry into the Covenant, known from the Community Rule (1QS), and alludes to a festival in the third month, i.e. the Feast of Weeks of Pentecost, when according to one of the Cave 4 manuscripts of the Damascus Document (4Q266) the Qumran Covenant renewal took place.
For the editio princeps, see P. S. Alexander and G. Vermes, DJD, XXVI, 200—16.
[And the Guardian will come] and the elders with him until... and they shall enter by genealogy... And the Guardian shall [curse (the unrepentant), saying ‘Be damned without] mercy. [Let him be cur]sed ...’ And he will remove him] from his inheritance for ev[er] ... when he visits destruction ...
Four Classes of the Community
(4Q279)
Formerly known as 4QTohorot Da, this fragment is one of three small scraps which have partly preserved the division of the Community into four lots or classes, already known from CD XIV, 5-6, viz. Priests, Levites, Israelites and Proselytes.
For the editio princeps, see P. S. Alexander and G. Vermes, DJD, XXVI, 217-23.
... [The first] lot belongs [to the Pries]ts, the sons of Aaron [and the second lot to the Levites ranked in order] each according to his spirit. And the [third] lo[t will belong to the children of Israel in order each according to his spirit. And] the fourth lot will belong to the Prosely[tes] ...
The Damascus Document
(CD, 4Q265-73, 5Q12, 6Q15)
Extensive fragments of the Damascus Document have been recovered from three of the Qumran caves (4Q265-73, 5Q12=CD IX, 7-10, 6Q15=CD IV, 19-21, V, 13-14, v, I-VI, 2, VI, 20-VII, I plus a text unparalleled in CD), but two incomplete medieval copies of this document had been found already many years earlier, in 1896-7, amongst a mass of discarded manuscripts in a storeroom (genizah) of an old Cairo synagogue. Published in 1910 by S. Schechter (Fragments of a Zadokite Work, Cambridge), they were reprinted with a new Prolegomenon by J. A. Fitzmyer in 1970, re-edited by Chaim Rabin under the title The Zadokite Documents (Oxford, 1954) and in the light of the 4Q fragments by M. Broshi, The Damascus Document Reconsidered, Jerusalem, 1992. Cf. also J. M. Baumgarten et al. in J. H. Charlesworth et al., eds., The DSS II:Damascus Document..., 1995, 4-79. For the editio princeps, see J. M. Baumgarten, DJD, XVIII, 1996.
Dating from the tenth and twelfth centuries respectively, the manuscripts found in Cairo - Manuscript A and Manuscript B - raise a certain number of textual problems in that they present two different versions of the original composition. I have settled the difficulty as satisfactorily as I can by following Manuscript A, to which the 4Q fragments correspond, and by inserting the Manuscript B variants in brackets or footnotes. At a certain point, as the reader will see, Manuscript A comes to an end and we then have to rely entirely on Manuscript B. Furthermore, two of the Cave 4 manuscripts (4Q266 and 268) show that page 1 of the Cairo document was preceded by another section of which both the beginning and the end have survived. Also 4Q266 and 270 indicate that in antiquity the text corresponding to CD IX, 1 was preceded by CD XVI. In the translation I have therefore rearranged the order of the pages and placed pages xv and XVI before page ix.
The title ‘Damascus Document’ derives from the references in the Exhortation to the ‘New Covenant’ made ‘in the land of Damascus’. The significance of this phrase is discussed in Chapter III together with the chronological data included in the manuscript. They suggest that the document was written in about 100 BCE and this hypothesis is indirectly supported by the absence of any mention in the historical passages of the Kittim (Romans) whose invasion of the Orient did not take place until after 70 BCE.
The work is divided into an Exhortation and a list of Statutes. In the Exhortation, the preacher - probably a Guardian of the Community - addresses his ‘sons’ on the themes of the sect’s teaching, many of which appear also in the Community Rule. His aim is to encourage the sectaries to remain faithful, and with this end in view he sets out to demonstrate from the history of Israel and the Community that fidelity is always rewarded and apostasy chastised.
During the course of his argument, the author of the Damascus Document frequently interprets biblical passages in a most unexpected way. I have mentioned one of these commentaries on the marriage laws in Chapter IV (pp. 69-70), but there is another intricate exposition of Amos v, 26-7 on p. 135 which may not be easy to understand.
In the Bible these verses convey a divine threat: the Israelites were to take themselves and their idols into exile: ‘You shall take up Sakkuth your king and Kaiwan your star-god, your images which you made for yourse
lves, for I will take you into exile beyond Damascus.’ But the Damascus Document transforms this threat into a promise of salvation; by changing certain words in the biblical text and omitting others its version reads: ‘I will exile the tabernacle of your king and the bases of your statues from my tent to Damascus.’
In this new text, the three key phrases are interpreted symbolically as follows: ‘tabernacle’ = ‘Books of the Law’; ‘king’ = ‘congregation’; ‘bases of statues’ = ‘Books of the Prophets’. Thus: ‘The Books of the Law are the tabernacle of the king; as God said, I will raise up the tabernacle of David which is fallen (Amos ix, 11). The king is the congregation; and the bases of the statues are the Books of the Prophets whose sayings Israel despised.’
The omission of any reference to the ‘star-god’ is made good by introducing a very different ‘Star’, the messianic ‘Interpreter of the Law’ with his companion the ‘Prince of the congregation’. ‘The star is the Interpreter of the Law who shall come to Damascus; as it is written, A star shall come forth out of Jacob and a sceptre shall rise out of Israel (Num. xxiv, 17). The sceptre is the Prince of the whole congregation...’
The second part of the Damascus Document, the Statutes, consists of a collection of laws which mostly reflect a sectarian reinterpretation of the biblical commandments relative to vows and oaths, tribunals, purification, the Sabbath and the distinction between ritual purity and impurity. They are followed by rules concerned with the institutions and organization of the Community. Some of the particular laws of the Damascus Rule appear also in the Temple Scroll (cf. p. 192).
Whereas the Exhortation represents a literary genre adopted by both Jewish and Christian religious teachers (e.g. the Letter to the Hebrews), the methodical grouping of the Statutes prefigures that of the Mishnah, the oldest extant Jewish code.
The Statutes as they appear in the Qumran fragments include the form of the ritual for the Feast of the Renewal of the Covenant, so it may be assumed that the entire Damascus Document was originally connected with that festival. 4Q266, as will be seen presently, specifies that it occurred in the third month, i.e. that it coincided with the Feast of Weeks, celebrated on the fifteenth day of the third month according to the sect’s calendar.
The translation of those Cave 4 fragments which are additional to CD will follow the presentation of the Cairo manuscripts.
The Exhortation
I Listen now74 all you who know righteousness, and consider the works of God; for He has a dispute with all flesh and will condemn all those who despise Him.
For when they were unfaithful and forsook Him, He hid His face from Israel and His Sanctuary and delivered them up to the sword. But remembering the Covenant of the forefathers, He left a remnant to Israel and did not deliver it up to be destroyed. And in the age of wrath, three hundred and ninety years after He had given them into the hand of King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, He visited them, and He caused a plant root to spring from Israel and Aaron to inherit His Land and to prosper on the good things of His earth. And they perceived their iniquity and recognized that they were guilty men, yet for twenty years they were like blind men groping for the way.
And God observed their deeds, that they sought Him with a whole heart, and He raised for them a Teacher of Righteousness to guide them in the way of His heart. And he made known to the latter generations that which God had done to the latter generation, the congregation of traitors, to those who departed from the way. This was the time of which it is written, Like a stubborn heifer thus was Israel stubborn (Hos. iv. 16), when the Scoffer arose who shed over Israel the waters of lies. He caused them to wander in a pathless wilderness, laying low the everlasting heights, abolishing the ways of righteousness and removing the boundary with which the forefathers had marked out their inheritance, that he might call down on them the curses of His Covenant and deliver them up to the avenging sword of the Covenant. For they sought smooth things and preferred illusions (Isa. xxx, 10) and they watched for breaks (Isa. xxx, 13) and chose the fair neck; and they justified the wicked and condemned the just, and they transgressed the Covenant and violated the Precept. They banded together against the life of the righteous (Ps. xciv, 21) and loathed all who walked in perfection; they pursued them with the sword and exulted in the strife of the people. And the anger of God was kindled against II their congregation so that He ravaged all their multitude; and their deeds were defilement before Him.
Hear now, all you who enter the Covenant, and I will unstop your ears concerning the ways of the wicked.75
God loves knowledge. Wisdom and understanding He has set before Him, and prudence and knowledge serve Him. Patience and much forgiveness are with Him towards those who turn from transgression; but power, might, and great flaming wrath by the hand of all the Angels of Destruction towards those who depart from the way and abhor the Precept. They shall have no remnant or survivor. For from the beginning God chose them not; He knew their deeds before ever they were created and He hated their generations, and He hid His face from the Land until they were consumed. For He knew the years of their coming and the length and exact duration of their times for all ages to come and throughout eternity. He knew the happenings of their times throughout all the everlasting years. And in all of them He raised for Himself men called by name76 that a remnant might be left to the Land, and that the face of the earth might be filled with their seed. And He made known His Holy Spirit to them by the hand of His anointed ones, and He proclaimed the truth (to them). But those whom He hated He led astray.
Hear now, my sons, and I will uncover your eyes that you may see and understand the works of God, that you may choose that which pleases Him and reject that which He hates, that you may walk perfectly in all His ways and not follow after thoughts of the guilty inclination and after eyes of lust. For through them, great men have gone astray and mighty heroes have stumbled from former times till now. Because they walked in the stubbornness of their heart the Heavenly Watchers fell; they were caught because they did not keep the commandments of God. And their sons also fell who were tall as cedar trees and whose bodies were like mountains. All flesh on dry land perished; they were as though they had never been because they did their own will and did not keep the commandment of their Maker so that His wrath was kindled against them. III Through it, the children of Noah went astray, together with their kin, and were cut off. Abraham did not walk in it, and he was accounted a friend of God because he kept the commandments of God and did not choose his own will. And he handed them down to Isaac and Jacob, who kept them, and were recorded as friends of God and party to the Covenant for ever. The children of Jacob strayed through them and were punished in accordance with their error. And their sons in Egypt walked in the stubbornness of their hearts, conspiring against the commandments of God and each of them doing that which seemed right in his own eyes. They ate blood, and He cut off their males in the wilderness. And at Kadesh He said to them, Go up and possess the land (Deut. ix, 23). But they chose their own will and did not heed the voice of their Maker, the commands of their Teacher, but murmured in their tents; and the anger of God was kindled against their congregation. Through it their sons perished, and through it their kings were cut off; through it their mighty heroes perished and through it their land was ravaged. Through it the first members of the Covenant sinned and were delivered up to the sword, because they forsook the Covenant of God and chose their own will and walked in the stubbornness of their hearts, each of them doing his own will.