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

GEORGE J. BROOKE 311
in this blessing. 66 The opening part of the first stanza matches scriptural
phrases in Ps 61:4 (3 ET); Isa 30:13; and Prov 18:10–11. The third
stanza is based particularly on Mic 4:13 and 7:10. Some of these scriptural
verses are linked with catchwords to one another. Isa 11:1–5 is
directly applicable to the subject matter of the blessing, being about the
shoot that shall come from the stem of Jesse. The other passages belong
in contexts that can be related to the Prince indirectly; for example, Mic
4:13 addresses the daughter of Zion who, like the Prince, will ultimately
be triumphant. Thus, the blessing is a thoroughly suitable collection of
phrases and sentences from a range of prophetic and poetic passages,
woven together to make a new whole that has the cumulative force of all
the allusions together.
A second example also shows that to some extent the original context
of the scriptural allusions is significant. In the hymn in 1QH a 12 many
have discerned something of the life and times of the Righteous Teacher,
seeing the poem as autobiographical. Whatever the case concerning
authorship and subject matter, it is likely that the figure portrayed in the
poem is modeled to some extent on the servant figure of Isa 52:13–53:12.
It is especially likely that the description in 1QH a 12.22–23 is based on
some phrases from the servant poem of Isaiah:
But I, when I hold fast to Thee, I stand upright and rise against them that
scorn me; and mine hands are against all who despise me, for they esteem
me not [although] Thou showest strength through me and revealest
Thyself unto me in Thy strength unto a perfect light. (1QH a 12.22–23) 67
Even if some motifs, such as light (cf. Isa 53:11), are too general to be of
much value, the combination of being “despised” (hzb, bzh) and not
“being esteemed” (b#x, h[s ]b), which are the opening and closing words
of Isa 53:3, strongly suggest that the servant poem is in mind. Beyond
this single allusion the servant poem may then become significant for the
overall structure of the hymn in 1QH a 12. Thus, 1QH a 12.8 uses the
same idea of not being esteemed, and then the passage plays out the
whole idea of being oppressed, expelled, and reviled. This is surely significant,
not so much in terms of the detailed parallels of vocabulary, one
of which is pointed out above, but also because the allusions to Isa 53:3
both appear at structurally significant parts of the hymn: at the beginning
as the poet opens the description of his plight, and at the opening of the
66. See the principal edition by Jozef T. Milik, “Recueil des bénédictions,” in Qumran
Cave 1 (ed. D. Barthélemy and J. T. Milik; DJD 1; Oxford: Clarendon, 1955), 129.
Milik also cites several other passages.
67. Trans. Holm-Nielsen, Hodayot, 77.