PRIESTLY PROPHETS AT : SUMMONING SINAI THROUGH THE SONGS OF THE SABBATH SACRIFICE

Judith H. Newman University of Toronto, Canada

What would occasion songs in the liturgical life of the Qumran com- munity? One could well imagine that given their seeming estrangement from the priesthood in Jerusalem and its temple praxis, laments, or qinot, would have been a much more appropriate response to their situation in the wilderness. And indeed, of the great quantity of liturgical texts found at Qumran, the number designated as shir is rare.1 The collec- tion known as Shirot Olat haShabbat constitute a significant exception.2 The nine fragmentary copies of the Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice found at Qumran, eight from cave 4, one from cave 1, not to mention the text found at Masada, argue for their central role in Qumran ritual life. But what role was that? In her most recent writing on the purpose of the Shirot, Carol Newsom has suggested that The Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice provide the means by which those who read and heard it could receive not merely communion with angels but a virtual experience of presence in the heavenly temple among the angelic priests . . . the text readily may be understood as a means of enhancing the sense of priestly identity through its vivid description of the Israelite priesthood’s angelic counterparts.3

1 Of the twenty-two occurrences of shir in the so-called non-biblical texts, ten occur in headings of the Shirot Olat Hashabbat, three occur in the prose Psalms piece, “David’s Compositions,” two appear in the Songs of the Sage and there are singular mentions in 3Q6 1, 2; 4Q418 (4QInstruction); 4Q433; 4Q448. There are seven occurrences of the plural form shirot, all in the liturgical/calendrical text 4Q334 and one in 4Q433a ; the masculine plural construct occurs in II, 10 though with some question about the final yod; data from , et al., The Concordance (Leiden: Brill, 2003). 2 The noun can be masculine or feminine, a distinguishable feature of biblical songs that was interpreted with eschatological significance in the rabbinic literature and likely influenced early Christian use of odes; see James Kugel, “Is there but One Song?” Bib 63 (1982): 329–50. 3 Carol Newsom, “Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice,” EDSS 2:889. Much the same idea is expressed in her earlier article, “He Has Established For Himself Priests,” in 30 judith h. newman

Others have largely followed Newsom in this characterization, and her work on the Shirot remains indispensable, yet it seems more could be said. The Shirot have also often been characterized with the later trends of Hekhalot and Merkavah mysticism in mind, such that we have them described as “songs meant to engender mystical communion with the angels,” or as “mystical songs.”4 These characterizations remain somewhat vague and perhaps even suggest a kind of passivity or other- worldliness not otherwise characteristic of the zealous, ascetic sectarians whose writings and practices reflect a vivid concern for political and material matters in the here and now. Although any thesis about the use of these elusive compositions must remain tentative, I mean to suggest a more specific role for their use and argue that the thirteen Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice, which are tied to the first quarter of the solar year, served at Qumran as a trans- formative and preparatory rite in the community that prepared those who participated in it for the all-important festival of Shavuot and its calendrical cultic aftermath, including the full vesting of the consecrated priesthood on the thirteenth Sabbath in breastplate and other sacred garments. The complete season included reception of the divine spirit by the purified elect and the production of new scriptural interpreta- tion through oracular means, perhaps especially toward the end on the fourteen days between Shavuot and the summer solstice. Their purpose was thus to summon the immanent presence of the divine glory first revealed at Sinai anew, though in a new locale and with a decidedly priestly-prophetic inflection through the influence of Isaiah, Ezekiel, and Elijah. The scriptural account of the revelation at Sinai in Exodus is recognized as a notoriously difficult narrative to comprehend because of its complex incorporation of various traditions. In the case of the Shirot, the influence of Sinai is seen not in a distinct mention of the wildernesss mountain nor of the covenant mediator Moses himself, but more obliquely in the priestly kabod tradition associated with a visual and

Archaeology and History in the Dead Sea Scrolls: The New York University Conference in Memory of (ed. L. H. Schiffman; JSPSup 8; Sheffield: Sheffield University Press, 1990), 115–16. 4 Esther G. Chazon has rightly suggested that the view of Ithamar Gruenwald, Rachel Elior, and now we might add Philip Alexander, that proposes a trajectory between the priestly Qumran community to the merkavah mystics makes some good sense, but the situation was likely more complicated; see her “Human and Angelic Prayer in Light of the Scrolls,” in Liturgical Perspectives: Prayer and Poetry in Light of the Dead Sea Scrolls (ed. E. Chazon; STDJ 48; Leiden: Brill, 2003), 35–47, esp. 46–47.