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FOR KING JONATHAN OR AGAINST? the USE of the BIBLE in 4Q448* Three Columns of a Damaged Scroll from Qumran Cave 4 Were

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FOR KING JONATHAN OR AGAINST? the USE of the BIBLE in 4Q448* Three Columns of a Damaged Scroll from Qumran Cave 4 Were FOR KING JONATHAN OR AGAINST? THE USE OF THE BIBLE IN 4Q448* EMMANUELLE MAIN The Hebrew University qfJerusalem Three columns of a damaged scroll from Qumran cave 4 were pub­ lished in 1991, by Esther and Hanan Eshel and Ada Yardeni, under the title: "A Scroll from Qumran Which Includes Part of Psalm 154 and a Prayer for KingJonathan and His Kingdom."1 The expression 'jonathan the king," 1,oi11m1', was deciphered twice, once in the sec­ ond column and once in the third column of this scroll. These two adjacent columns on the bottom half of the sheet indeed seem to be a part of the same literary unit, which appears to be a prayer. This discovery is very exciting. It not only provides us with a previ­ ously unknown work but, moreover, seems to be first-hand evidence of what a Jewish contemporary of Jonathan (i.e., of Alexander Jannaeus), thought about the famous Hasmonean king. What, then, is the meaning of the prayer? What was its purpose? Does it indeed mean, as the editors concluded, albeit not without some hesitation, that this text constitutes a prayer for the welfare of King Jonathan2 and his kingdom? Some scholars agreed completely with the editors' interpretation.3 • This is a revised and expanded version 0/ the lecture I gave in Mqy 1996 at the Orion Center International Symposium on Biblical Perspectives. I want to express special thanks to Prq/. Daniel Schwart;:: for his valuable remarks on a previous version qf this paper and to Drs. Esther Cha;::on and Avital Pinnick for their heroic ifJorts in making itr English acceptable. A Hebrew version 0/ this paper is forthcoming in Tarbiz. I That is the English title of the first publication in Hebrew, by E. Eshel, H. Eshel and A. Yardeni, in Tarbi;:: 60 (1991) 295-323. The paper has been republished in English under the title: "A Qumran Composition Containing Part of Ps. 154 and a Prayer for the Welfare of King Jonathan and his Kingdom," lE] 42 (1992) 199- 229. We will refer here to the English version of the publication, unless explicit ref­ erence to the Hebrew version is made. See also a reproduction of the scroll in Scrolls from the Dead Sea: An Exhibition qf Scrolls and Archaeological Artifacts from the Collections qf the Israel Antiquities Authority (Ed. A. Sussmann and R. Peled; Washington DC: Library of Congress and Israel Antiquities Authority, 1993) 40-43. 2 As far as I know, only two tried to prove that the reference is to Jonathan Maccabaeus, Geza Vermes and Emile Puech. It is somehow paradoxical to under­ stand the expression 'jonathan the king" as specifically referring to someone who was not king. See G. Vermes, "The So-Called KingJonathan Fragment (4Q448)," JJS 44 (1993) 294-300. E. Puech, 'jonathan le pretre impie et les debuts de Qumnln. 4OJonaihan (4QJ23) et 4QfsAp (4Q,448}," RevQ, 17 (1996) 241-70. 3 D. Flusser, "Some Notes about the Prayer for the King Jonathan," Tarbi;:: 61 114 EMMANUELLE MAIN Others even added some syntactical remarks justifYing the editors' reading.4 In contrast, Daniel Harrington and John Strugnell pro­ posed another readingS of the first line of col. B in a short note: The reading yr ... '[6 ('Rise up, 0 Holy One, But/And let the congre­ gation of your people Israel. .. be in peace') would follow the normal use of the verb and preposition; we would have an anti:Jannean inci­ pit to a pro-Israel hymn; nothing in the surviving text would argue against this. 7 Nevertheless, they also left open the possibility that, as they said, "we have a pro:Jannean wish that God rise up 'on behalf of King J onathan.' " If both interpretations are possible, what would help us to deter­ mine in which sense we should understand the whole prayer? Thanks to the thorough and precise work of the editors, a solution may be found. The editors point to two very specific expressions which, although not quoted explicitly, appear to have been bor­ rowed from the Former and Latter Prophets, the one from Zechariah and the other from the Book of Judges. Furthermore, these expressions illuminate the background of this text and provide the key to its meaning, especially to that of col. B. Therefore, we will first examine the expressions and contexts in which they appear in the biblical text. This will draw our attention to some crucial issues which seem to underlie the author's petitions. The second part of this paper will be devoted to the analysis and translation of col. B. Since the prayer does not sound positive to­ wards Jonathan, despite the petitions on Israel's behalf, I will com­ pare it to other prayers similarly framed. At the close of this study, I will add some remarks about one expression in col. C, which will demonstrate that it belongs to the world of Qumran. In my conclu­ sion, I will attempt to show how and to what degree the biblical in­ quiry has helped to clarify the meaning of this prayer. (1992) 297-300 (Hebrew); H. Stegemann, Die Essener, Q.umran, Johannes der Tiiufer und Jesus (Freiburg: Herder, 1993) 187-88. 4 P. Alexander, "A Note on the Syntax of 4Q448," JJS 44 (1993) 301-02; M. Kis­ ter, "Notes on Some New Texts from Qumran." JJS 44 (1993) 289-90; E. Qjmron, "About the Benediction for KingJonathan," Tarbi;:: 61 (1992) 565-67 (Hebrew). 5 In the Hebrew version of their publication, the editors proposed the reading rv1P ;',1). In the English version, however, they repeated this only cautiously, trans­ lating the first line with only "Holy." 6 Elisha Qjmron (see n. 4) read 'wr 'I, but he interpreted the expression, "Watch, o Lord, over KingJonathan," in a positive manner. The editors completely agreed with him (Qjmron, "About the Benediction," 208). See below n. 27. 7 "Qumran Cave 4 Texts: a New Publication," JBL 112 (1993) 491-99, esp. 498-99. .
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