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

358 THE MOSES AT QUMRAN
3. MOSES: THE NURSING-FATHER TO HIS COMMUNITY (NUM 11:12)
The Righteous Teacher has rightly been compared to Moses. His role in
the community, like Moses, was to bring the Torah to the “House of
Judah.” Like the covenant that was delivered through Moses, the
Qumranites were now given “a new covenant” (1QpHab 2.3); understandably
the Righteous Teacher is thereby considered a “second Moses”
for the community. In his study of 11Q19 (= 11QT a ), John C. Reeves
states that “by invoking the Mosaic mantle [in 11QT a ] the qdch hrwm
implicitly assumes the role of a ‘second Moses.’” 31
In this context we can compare the Righteous Teacher with Moses via
a remarkable and parallel use of the parental imagery found in Num
11:12, where the same word (Nm)) 32 is used. The text sees Moses’
divinely prescribed role as that of a wet-nurse to Israel.
wh)# yl) rm)t yk whytdly ykn) M) hzh M(h lk t) ytyrh ykn)h
wytb)l t(b#n r#) hmd)h l( qnyh t) Nm)h )#y r#)k Kqyxb
Did I conceive all of these people? Did I give birth to them? Why do you
tell me to carry them in my bosom, like a wet-nurse carries an infant, to the
land that you promised on oath to their ancestors?
Notice the striking maternal imagery. Moses is remonstrating with God
about the exhausting and exasperating burden he has been assigned.
Since God is “the mother” who conceived and bore the Israelites, God
ought to take responsibility for being Israel’s wet-nurse. But now Moses
has to serve as their nursing-father. 33 Hence one could well imagine the
Righteous Teacher resorting to a conscious use of the same imagery in
the Torah, and that in a community that inhabited the world of Torah,
these words were heard as a reference to Moses, the nursing-father of Israel.
31. John C. Reeves, “The Meaning of Moreh sedeq in the Light of 11Q Torah,”
RevQ 13 (1988): 287–98. Reeves goes so far as to argue, from Josephus’ use of the
term nomothetēs (in J.W. 2.145), that the qdch hrwm should be viewed as “True
Lawgiver” of the Qumran sect rather than as “Teacher of Righteousness” (ibid.,
297–98).
32. The obvious difference from the use in 1QH 15 and 17 is that here in Numbers
the Qal participle of Nm) is written defectively without the mater. Gert Jeremias also
notes the parallel of Nmw) in 1QH 15 with both Moses and Paul (Der Lehrer der
Gerechtigkeit, 183n21; 190).
33. Dennis T. Olson, Numbers (IBC; Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1996), 66.
Though unusual, this female imagery for God is not unique (e.g., Deut 32:18; Isa
42:14; 66:13). In this connection also see other texts such as Isa 60:16; 66:7–9, 11.