historical perspectives: from the hasmoneans to bar kokhba in light ...

KITTIM IN THE WAR SCROLL AND IN THE PESHARIM 31
The author of the Book of Jubilees seems to identify the Kittim not
as the Romans, but as the people who lived in the area of Greece.
The Kittim were mentioned after the story of Abimelek, when Isaac
cursed the Philistines to be handed to the Kittim, who will kill them
by sword (Jub. 24:28-29). This reference does not help us to identify
the Kittim, but in Jub. 37:10, in the description of the army
enlisted by Esau to fight Jacob, the Kittim are included among his
troops. 4 Therefore, it seems that the Kittim were identified here as
living in the Greek islands, an area from which mercenaries stationed
in Israel were known since the late Bronze Age. 5 It should
be noted that there is no evidence in Israel of Italian mercenaries
in the First or Second Temple periods.
Another reference to Balaam's prophecy can be found in the
Testament of Simon, where in a description of the End of Days we
read: "And all the Cappadocians shall perish, And all the Kittim
shall be utterly destroyed" (6:3). From this description it is difficult
to know who the Kittim are according to the author of the Testament
of Simon. 6
The Kittim are mentioned in seven different Qumran compositions,
six of which are sectarian, expressing the world view of scribes
who were part of the Qumran sect. The seventh occurrence of the
Kittim is found in 4Q247, which does not seem to be of sectarian
origin. 7 4Q247 is a pesher on the Apocalypse of Weeks (Enoch 93
and 91). 8 The fragment reads as follows: 9
4
Y. Yadin assumed that the name Kittim was added to the Book of Jubilees later
since the number of mighty men of war from the Kittim is not specified. See
Y. Yadin, The Scroll of the War of the Sons of Light against the Sons of Darkness (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1962), 24 n. 8.
5
On Kittim as Greek or Cypriot mercenaries who served in the Judean army
at the end of the First Temple period, see Y. Aharoni, Arad Inscriptions (Jerusalem:
Israel Exploration Society, 1981), 12-13.
6
M. de Jonge, The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, NTSup 63 (Leiden: E. J.
Brill, 1978), 21.
7
Some scholars reconstruct ] in 4Q322 (the so-called 'Annalistic Calendar')
as well. See B. Z. Wacholder and M. G. Abegg, A Preliminary Edition of the Unpublished
Dead Sea Scrolls, vol. 1 (Washington, D.C.: Biblical Archaeology Society, 1991), 77-78.
8
On the Ten Week Apocalypse, see S. B. Reid, "The Structure of the Ten
Week Apocalypse and the Book of Dream Visions," JSJ 16 (1985): 189-201.
9
J. T. Milik, The Books of Enoch (Oxford: Clarendon, 1976), 256.
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