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

346 ECONOMIC JUSTICE AND NONRETALIATION
9.22–23 and 11.1–2, a facade that covers the “concealed hatred” of the
community from its oppressors (9.21–22; 10.19–20). 83 And deferment to
God’s justice is understood as temporarily withholding their own lawsuits
and their own participation with God in the judgment of the wicked (cf.
1QH a 6.4), 84 but not at all diminishing their wrath, as is made clear in
9.23 and 10.19–20. In this case, deferment to God does not mean relinquishing
their own opportunity to exact vengeance upon the wicked.
Fundamental to this interpretation of the precept is the notion that the
covenanter “shall walk with every living being according to the arrangement
of every time and the weight of every person” (1QS 9.12; cf.
3.13–15; 8.4; 9.18–21; 10.25–26). Social morality is defined and applied
in two ways: in terms of the classes of humanity (cf. 9.14–23; 10.17–21;
10.26–11.2; 1QH a 6.8–22) and in terms of the nature of the time (7.15;
9.13–14, 19–21, 23, 25; cf. CD 2.9–10; 12.21–22; 16.2–4). Thus, we read
that covenanters must “love all the sons of light, each according to his lot
(position) in the Council of God,” and must “hate all the sons of darkness,
each according to his fault in the Vengeance of God” (1QS 1.9–11;
cf. 5.11–13; 9.16, 21–22; 1QH a 6.19, 21), a notion that they deduced
from the Scripture. 85 “Now” is the time for separation and subservience
with a concealed hatred (1QS 8.12–14; 9.19–23); soon will come the day
of vengeance (9.23, 25; 10.19–20), when the community will be agents of
God’s vengeance, indeed God’s army (1Q28a 1.21, 26; 1QM). 86
83. Thus, Krister Stendahl, “Hate, Non-Retaliation, and Love: 1QS x,17–20 and
Rom. 12:19–21,” HTR 55 (1962): 344, aptly remarks: “To pursue outsiders with
good is a special case of ‘the eternal hatred,’ not of love.”
84. For the theme that the elect will be God’s agents of judgment, see, e.g., 1QS
8.6–7, 10; 1QH a 14.18–19, 29–33; 15.22–23; 16.17–20; 1QpHab 5.3–6; 1QM 6.5–6;
13.16–18. George W. E. Nickelsburg, “1 Enoch and Qumran Origins,” in SBL
Seminar Papers, 1986 (ed. K. Richards; SBLSP 23; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1986), 353,
traces this belief to the group from which the Essenes derived, as exemplified in 1 En.
91–98. For a discussion of documents in which one finds a synergistic historical or
eschatological ideology of human military action by the elect as the method by which
God avenges (e.g., 1–2 Maccabees; Judith; Jub. 23; 1 En. 85–90, 91–93) in contrast
to other writings in which such an idea is either absent (2 Baruch; 2 Esdras; Sib. Or.
3) or possibly questioned (Wisdom of Solomon; Psalms of Solomon; Daniel; Testament of
Moses; Revelation), see Gordon M. Zerbe, “‘Pacifism’ and ‘Passive Resistance’ in
Apocalyptic Writings: A Critical Evaluation,” in The Pseudepigrapha and Early Biblical
Interpretation (ed. J. H. Charlesworth and C. A. Evans; JSPSup 14; Sheffield, 1993),
65–95. Cf. the idea in Paul that believers will participate in the eschatological judgment
of nonbelievers, in 1 Cor 5:12–6:3.
85. See Edmond F. Sutcliffe, “Hatred at Qumran,” RevQ 2 (1960): 345–55; Thomas
Söding, “Feindeshass und Bruderliebe: Beobachtungen zur essenischen Ethik,” RevQ
16 (1995): 601–19.
86. On the question of a possible increase in Essene militarism in the first century,
which poses a contrast to Philo’s picture of Essenes as pacifistic (Prob. 76–78), see