A Newly Discovered Interpretation of Isaiah 40:12–13 in the Songs of the Sage*

CHAPTER 2 A Newly Discovered Interpretation of Isaiah 40:12–13 in the Songs of the Sage*

Joseph L. Angel

Since ancient times, practitioners of Jewish magic have sought to harness the divine power assumed to inhere in the words of the Hebrew Bible. From all in- dications, the employment of biblical phrases and verses for magical purposes was a creative and fluid process, and there was never a fixed list of scriptural sources designated for such purposes.1 Nevertheless, certain texts were utilized more often than others, and while the vast majority of the extant evidence for early Jewish magic derives from late antiquity and the early Middle Ages, in some cases it is possible to trace the magical application of particular scriptural passages back to Second Temple times and even earlier. Three striking examples are Zech 3:2, Ps 91, and Num 6:24–26, all of which are recognized as efficacious apotropaic formulae not only in rabbinic tradition and roughly contemporary materials such as Aramaic magic bowls, amulets, and magical handbooks like Havdalah de-Rabbi Akiva, but also in textual finds of a much earlier period such as the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Ketef Hinnom amulets.2 In the light of these better known examples, it is not surprising to find that Isaiah 40:12, a passage cited in late antique amulets and magic bowls and in

* It is a pleasure to dedicate this study to my teacher, colleague, and friend, Moshe Bernstein, from whom I have learned and continue to learn much about ancient Jewish biblical interpretation. 1 See Gideon Bohak, Ancient Jewish Magic: A History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 309. According to Joshua Trachtenberg , Jewish Magic and Superstition: A Study in Folk Religion (New York: Behrman’s Jewish Book House; repr. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004), 108, a specific passage was selected for citation on the basis of one or both of the following two rationales: (1) It contains the name of God or speaks of God’s tremendous power, and thus came to be regarded as a source of divine power itself. (2) It seemed to have a more or less immediate relevance to the situation in which it was employed. 2 For some specific examples, see Joseph Angel, “The Use of the Hebrew Bible in Early Jewish Magic,” Religion Compass 3 (2009): 789–90.

Sefer ha-Razim,3 also makes an appearance in 4QSongs of the Sageb (4Q511), a first-century collection of hymns for protection against demons that has been characterized by some scholars as “magical poetry.”4 In the present study, I would like to reexamine the citation of Isa 40:12 (and 40:13a) in 4Q511 30 and offer a new suggestion for its function within its larger compositional setting on the basis of the recent material reconstruction of the manuscript, which has clarified the positioning of fragments in the original scroll.5 Ultimately, I shall argue that the newly established sequence of the text of frg. 30 just before that of frgs. 44–47 sheds new light on the manner in which the Isaiah passage was interpreted and employed in the Songs of the Sage. It is suitable to begin by studying frg. 30, which preserves the remnants of six lines from the bottom of a column.

1 ח̇תמ̇ת̊ה̊] א[ר̇ צ ◦◦◦] [ 2 ויעמקו̇] [ש̊מ̊ י̊ם ו̇ תהומות ומח̇ ] [ 3 אתה אלי̊ ח̊ת̊מ̊ תה בעד כולם ואין פותח ולאשר̊ ] [ 4 הימדו בשועל אנשים מי רבה ו̇א̊ ם בזרת] יתכן איש שמים ובשליש[6

3 See Joseph Naveh and Shaul Shaked, Amulets and Magic Bowls: Aramaic Incantations of Late Antiquity (3rd ed.; Jerusalem: The Magnes Press, 1998), 104–5, 190–91; Michael A. Morgan, Sepher Ha-Razim: The Book of the Mysteries (Chico: Scholars Press, 1983), 42. 4 For the dating of 4Q511 to around the turn of the era, see Maurice Baillet, Qumran grotte 4.III (4Q482–4Q520) (DJD 7; Oxford: Clarendon, 1982), 219. Bilhah Nitzan, Qumran Prayer and Religious Poetry (trans. Jonathan Chipman; STDJ 12; Leiden: Brill, 1994), 227–72, treats the Songs of the Sage in a chapter entitled “Magical Poetry.” However, Esther Eshel argues that whereas magical incantations, such as 11QApocrpyhal Psalms (11Q11) are characterized by direct addresses and adjurations of the demons, the Songs of the Sage refer to evil forces in the third person, and thus should be categorized as an apotropaic prayer (Esther Eshel, “Apotropaic Prayers in the Second Temple Period,” in Liturgical Perspectives: Prayer and Poetry in Light of the Dead Sea Scrolls; Proceedings of the Fifth International Symposium of the Orion Center for the Study of the Dead Sea Scrolls and Associated Literature, 19–23 January 2000 [ed. E. Chazon; STDJ 48; Leiden: Brill 2003], 69–88). In fact, the evidence of some of the smaller, often ignored fragments suggests that the Songs also may have included adjurations directly addressed to demons, blurring the distinction between apotropaic prayer and incan- tation and complicating the classification of the composition. See further Joseph L. Angel, “Reading the Songs of the Sage in Sequence: Preliminary Observations and Questions,” in Functions of Psalms and Prayers in the Late Second Temple Period (ed. Mika S. Pajunen and Jeremy Penner; BZAW 486; Berlin: De Gruyter, 2017), 185–211. 5 J. L. Angel, “The Material Reconstruction of 4QSongs of the Sageb (4Q511),” RevQ 105 (2015): 25–82. 6 This reconstruction, based on the continuation of Isa 40:12, follows the suggestion of ,(Jerusalem: Yad ben-Zvi, 2013) מגילות מדבר יהודה: החיבורים העבריים—כרך שני ,E. Qimron