Dead Sea Scrolls Uncovered - The Preterist Archive

them because of his Piety (here clearly 'Grace') and directed their foot to the Way.' This exactly
parallels the exegesis of Hab. 2:4 in the Habakkuk Pesher: 'He saved them . . . because of their 'aural
('suffering works') and their faith in the Righteous Teacher.' Both are eschatological, the second
demonstrably so. The Habakkuk Pesher also makes this clear by the reference in the previous exegesis
to Hab. 2:3: 'If it tarries, wait for it', which it applies to what is known in early Christianity as 'the
delay of the Parousia', i.e. the delay of the 'End Time'.
One should also note the xenophobia inherent in Lines 7-10, and the references again paralleling the
Habakkuk Pesher, to 'peoples', 'Gentiles' and the fiery 'zeal' with which God would judge them, i.e.
God is as 'zealous' as these presumable 'Zealots'. This is continued into Fragment 3, where, amid the
language of 'works', 'atonement', 'Piety' and 'Glory', it is confirmed that God would comfort Jerusalem.
Here the nationalist sentiments of the literature are once more completely apparent.
Throughout the judgement material in Fragment 2, it is made clear that it is from foreign 'nations' and
'peoples' that God would save 'the Poor', as 'He sets His Angel round about the sons of Israel' (12).
There are splendid poetic allusions here too, such as, being 'hidden in the shadow of His wings' from
Psalms or those who 'walk in the Way of His heart' singing 'like flutes' (7 and 10). In the end, just as in
the case of Jerusalem, they would be comforted.
Line 2.6 reverses the Gospels' 'bride and bridegroom' imagery. Whereas in the Gospels this imagery
usually ends up in the disqualification of both Israel and the Law, here it is used to bless 'the Torah and
'the book of Your Laws' (3.12). Here, too, that 'Throne' imagery, so much a part of Merkahah
Mysticism and later medieval Jewish poetry, is once again evoked (3.7). As with the War Scroll from
Cave 1, there can be no doubting the militancy of these Hymns, nor their nationalism, their zeal for the
Law and their xenophobia, which it is possible to think of as becoming inverted in Gentile Christianity
as it has come down to us.