The Bible and the Dead Sea Scrolls: The ... - josephprestonkirk

310 BIBLICAL INTERPRETATION AT QUMRAN
was consciously alluding to particular biblical phrases and their contexts,
or whether the writing of poetry in the late Second Temple period was
largely a matter of playing games with one’s memory, only some of
which one’s audience might ever appreciate. With legal interpretation,
exhortatory interpretation, and narrative interpretation, it is clear that the
writers are consciously respecting and working with the original context
of the scriptural passage or passages they are interpreting, at least in the
overwhelming majority of cases. But with poetic interpretation, it is far
less clear when a poet is using, reusing, and exegetically renewing a particular
base text. There are examples of sectarian poetic compositions
where at least in part the use of Scripture seems carefully deliberate and
with attention to the scriptural text’s original context.
Two examples must suffice to show that the poetic or liturgical use of
Scripture merits a separate entry in any taxonomy of biblical interpretation
at Qumran. The first comes from the second appendix to the Cave
1 version of the Rule of the Community: the Blessings (1Q28b 5.23–27):
May the Lord ra[ise y]ou to an everlasting height
and like a stro[ng] tower on a high wall
And you will be like […] by the power of your [mouth]
by your scepter you will destroy the earth
and by the breath of your lips you will the kill the wicked.
May He giv[e you a spirit of couns]el and everlasting might,
a spirit of knowledge and of the fear of God.
And righteousness shall be the girdle of [your loins
and fai]th the girdle of your [haun]ches.
May He make your horns iron
and your hooves bronze.
May you toss like a bu[ll many peoples
and trample nat]ions like mud in the streets. 65
The extant part of this blessing seems to contain three stanzas. It is the
blessing of the Prince of the congregation. In each stanza the first half has
God as subject, and the second directly addresses the Prince. This deliberate
structural technique helps to explain why the allusions to Isa 11:2–5
that rest behind the poem are not in the order of Isaiah itself. In the first
stanza the second element, addressing the Prince, is based on Isa 11:4. In
the second stanza the first part, with God as subject, uses Isa 11:2; the
second part, again addressing the prince, comes from Isa 11:5. The text’s
principal editor, Jozef T. Milik, has pointed out other scriptural allusions
65. Trans. George J. Brooke and James M. Robinson, “A Further Fragment of 1QSb:
The Schøyen Collection MS 1909,” JJS 46 (1995): 120–33.