4Q437: A FIRST LOOK AT AN UNPUBLISHED BARKI NAFSHI TEXT

DAVID ROLPH SEELY Brigham Young Universiry

The Barki Nrifshi texts are aseries of five scrolls found in Cave 4 numbered 4Q434 through 4Q438.! They are called after the open• ing line of 4Q434 'J'i~ n~ 'rDElJ ':li:! "Bless, 0 my soul, the Lord," a phrase known from Psalms 103 and 104-both of which begin and end with this expression (Psalms 103:1, 2, 22; 104:1, 35). It is likely that the opening of this text is a deliberate attempt to follow the biblical model suggesting, perhaps, a genre of Barki Nrifshi texts, but there do not appear to be any other texts from which contain this phrase. There is such a thing as a Barki Nrifshi tradition in . Psalm 104, a hymn of praise to the Lord as the cre• ator, continues to be recited in the Ashkenazic tradition after Minhah on afternoon and in all the rites on Rosh Hodesh. In the Sephardie tradition a supplicatory prayer called "Barki Nqfihi," ascribed to Bahya ben Joseph ibn Pakudah from eleventh-century , is read after Musqf on Y om Kippur. These texts were originally assigned to Professor Strugnell who then reassigned them to Professor Moshe Weinfeld for official pub• lication in the Discoveries in the Judaean Desert series. I am currently working with Professor Weinfeld. Strugnell has done much work on these texts and has kindly given us some of his transcriptions and notes to which we are indebted. In addition, Professor Tov wrote a short commentary on 4Q437 which he has given to us and which has been useful to us in our work. References to both works will be made throughout this paper. 2

I Early discussions of these texts sometimes included 4Q439 as apart of this col• lection. We have determined that 4Q439 is not apart of the Barki Nafihi texts and therefore will give it separate treatment. 2 , unpublished transcriptions, translations, and notes on several of the Barki Nafihi texts; copy in the possession of the author; , "A Commentary on 4Q437 (Barki Napshi)"; copy of the unpublished manuscript from 1968 in the possession of the author. 148 DAVID ROLPH SEELY

The Barki Nqfshi texts consist of five sets of fragments sorted ac• cording to the scribal hand and in some cases according to the sim• ilarities in the leather upon which they are written. Several of these texts have been published recently. A fragmentary text, 4Q434, frag• ment 2 ~abelled by some as 4Q434a) has been published by Weinfeld who identified the text as an early form of the Grace After Meals for Mourners known in the rabbinic tradition.3 Three of the texts, 4Q434, 4Q434a, and 4Q436, have been published by Eisenman and Wise,4 and more recently translations of all three, 4Q434, 4Q434a, and 4Q436, have been published by Garcia Martinez.5 Vermes, in the fourth edition of his collection of Seroll texts, includes a translation of 4Q434.6 In addition all of these texts been published by Wacholder and Abegg in Fascicle Three of their Preliminary Edition qf the Unpublished Dead Sea Serolls series. 7 This paper has five goals: (1) to provide an introduction to the Barki Nqfshi texts in a general way, and to demonstrate that the five collections of fragments identified as the Barki Nqfshi texts were orig• inally parts of a single text; (2) to describe briefty in a more specific way the contents and themes of each of the five sets of fragments; (3) to provide a transcription and translation of 4Q437 1 i, a text which has not been included in any of the English translations pub• lished to date; (4) to briefty demonstrate how 4Q437 2 i fits within the other Barki Nafthi texts, and other texts at Qumran; and (5) to explore how the author of 437 1 i uses bib1ical texts in his composition.

The Barki Nafshi Texts and Their Relationship to Eaeh Other

Professor StrugneIl, during the initial sorting of fragments 4Q434- 4Q438 noted the occasional overlapping of the texts-that is each of the collections of fragments contains text found in one or more of the other collections. A simple graphic will illustrate the rela-

3 Moshe Weinfeld, "Grace Mter Meals in Qumran," JBL 111/3 (1992): 427-40. 4 and Michael Wise, The Dead Sea Seroils Uneovered (New York: Penguin, 1992), 238-41. Eisenman and Wise identify 4Q436 as "Fragment I," 4Q434 as "Fragment 2," and 4Q434' as "Fragment 3." 5 F1orentino Garcia Martinez, The Dead Sea Serolls Translated, trans. Wilfred G. E. Watson (: BrilI, 1994), 436, 437, 439. 6 Geza Vermes, 7he Dead Sea Seroils in English (New York: Penguin, 1994),280-81. 7 Ben Zion Wacholder and Martin G. Abegg, A Preliminary Edition qfthR Unpubiished Dead Sea Seroils: The Hebrew and Aramaie Textsftom Cave Four (Washington DC: Biblical Archaeological Society, 1991-96).