the-bible-and-the-dead-sea-scrolls

GORDON M. ZERBE 337
they will also be defeated “by the hand of them that are bent in the dust”
(1QM 11.8–9, 13–14; cf. 14.7). God’s hand is specially “with the poor”
(13.12–14), which characterizes “we in the lot of your truth.” In the
Commentary on Psalms the “afflicted” (Mywn() of Ps 37:11 are identified as
“the congregation of the poor (Mynwyb)),” who will be delivered from
their affliction to experience “everything enjoy[able to] the flesh” (4Q171
2.9–13; 3.8–10). 57
Complementing this self-understanding of the community as “poor,”
denunciations of economic injustice by the Jerusalem’s ruling class figure
prominently in the pesharim. The following is said of the Wicked Priest:
“He abandoned God and betrayed the precepts because of property”
(Nwh). “He stole and heaped up the wealth (Nwh) of men of injustice.” “He
took the property (Nwh) of the peoples” (1QpHab 8.10–12). “He stole the
property (Nwh) of the poor” in the towns of Judah (1QpHab 12.9–10).
Accordingly, the woe in Hab 2:9–11 on the one “who gets evil gain
((r (cb) for his house” is applied to the Priest’s establishment: “that its
stones might be in oppression (q#(b) and the beam of its framework in
robbery (lzgb)” (1QpHab 9.12–10.1). And thus, “God will condemn
him to destruction even as he himself planned to destroy the poor
(Mynwyb))” (12.5–6), and “he will be paid his reward for what he has
done to the poor” (Mynwyb)). Here the “poor” are identified both as “the
Council of the Community” (dxyh tc(), and as “the simple (y)tp) of
Judah who practice the Law,” apparently referring to two separate groups
(12.2–5) and implying sympathy for and solidarity with illiterate (but still
observant) poor beyond their own community. 58 More generally, the
commentary on Hab 2:8a refers to “the last Priests of Jerusalem who
heap up wealth (Nwh) and gain ((cb) by plundering the peoples”
(1QpHab 9.4–7). Similarly, in the Commentary on Nahum, singled out for
criticism is “the wealth (Nwh) which [the pries]ts of Jerusalem
accu[mulated],” and which will be delivered to the hands of the Kittim
(4Q169 frags. 3–4 1.9–12). The Commentary on Psalm 37 (5.20c) denounces
“princes [of wickedn]ess who have oppressed (God’s) holy people; they
57. Cf. the reference to the “poor of his flock” in CD-B 19.9, absent in the parallel
in CD-A 7.20–21. See also Leander E. Keck, “‘The Poor among the Saints’ in Jewish
Christianity and at Qumran,” ZNW 57 (1966): 54–78.
58. This is the natural interpretation of the interpreter’s attempt to identify both
“Lebanon” and the “beasts” of Hab 2:17. It is unlikely that the scribes would refer to
themselves either as “simple” or in reference to “beasts.” The plundering referred to
is generalized, including the “property of the peoples” (cf. 4QpHab 9.4–7, below) in
the “towns of Judah” (12.9). On the “simple,” cf. 1Q28a 1.19–22; CD 15.10–11. On
the “Council of the Community” as a common title for the group in 1QS, see, e.g.,
6.3; 7.22, 24; 8.1, 5.