The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English (23 page)

A man shall seek his brother's well-being
VII
and shall not sin against his near kin. They shall keep from fornication according to the statute. They shall rebuke each man his brother according to the commandment and shall bear no rancour from one day to the next. They shall keep apart from every uncleanness according to the statutes relating to each one, and no man shall defile his holy spirit since God has set them apart. For all who walk in these (precepts) in perfect holiness, according to all the teaching of God, the Covenant of God shall be an assurance that they shall live for thousands of generations (MS. B: as it is written,
Keeping the Covenant and grace with those who love me and keep my commandments, to a thousand generations,
Deut. vii, 9).

And if they live in camps according to the rule of the Land (MS. B: as it was from ancient times), marrying (MS. B: according to the custom of the Law) and begetting children, they shall walk according to the Law and according to the statute concerning binding vows, according to the rule of the Law which says,
Between a man and his wife and between a father and his son
(Num. xxx, 17). And all those who despise (MS. B: the commandments and the statutes) shall be rewarded with the retribution of the wicked when God shall visit the Land, when the saying shall come to pass which is written
⁷⁹
among the words of the Prophet Isaiah son of Amoz:
He will bring upon you, and upon your people, and upon your father's house, days such as have not come since the day that Ephraim departed from Judah
(Isa. vii, 17). When the two houses of Israel were divided, Ephraim departed from Judah. And all the apostates were given up to the sword, but those who held fast escaped to the land of the north; as God said,
I will exile the tabernacle of your king and the bases of your statues from my tent to Damascus
(Amos v, 26-7)

The Books of the Law are the
tabernacle
of the king; as God said,
I will raise up the tabernacle of David which is fallen
(Amos ix, II). The
king
is the congregation; and the
bases of the statues
are the Books of the Prophets whose sayings Israel despised. The star is the Interpreter of the Law who shall come to Damascus; as it is written,
A star shall come forth out ofJacob and a sceptre shall rise out of Israel
(Num. xxiv, 17). The
sceptre
is the Prince of the whole congregation, and when he comes he
shall smite all the children of Seth
(Num. xxiv, 17).

At the time of the former Visitation they were saved, whereas the apostates
VIII
were given up to the sword; and so shall it be for all the members of His Covenant who do not hold steadfastly to these (MS. B: to the curse of the precepts). They shall be visited for destruction by the hand of Belial. That shall be the day when God will visit. (MS. B: As He said,)
The princes of Judah have become
(MS. B:
like those who remove the bound); wrath shall be poured upon them
(Hos. v, 10). For they shall hope for healing but He will crush them. They are all of them rebels, for they
⁸⁰
have not turned from the way of traitors but have wallowed in the ways of whoredom and wicked wealth. They have taken revenge and borne malice, every man against his brother, and every man has hated his fellow, and every man has sinned against his near kin, and has approached for unchastity, and has acted arrogantly for the sake of riches and gain. And every man has done that which seemed right in his eyes and has chosen the stubbornness of his heart. They have not kept apart from the people (MS. B: and their sin) and have wilfully rebelled by walking in the ways of the wicked of whom God said,
Their wine is the venom of serpents, the cruel poison
(or
head) of asps
(Deut. xxxii, 33).

The
serpents
are the kings of the peoples and their
wine
is their ways. And the
head of asps
is the chief of the kings of Greece who came to wreak vengeance upon them. But all these things the
builders of the wall and those who daub it with plaster
(Ezek. xiii, 10) have not understood because a follower of the wind, one who raised storms and rained down lies, had preached to them (Mic. ii, 11), against all of whose assembly the anger of God was kindled.

And as for that which Moses said,
You enter to possess these nations not because of your righteousness or the uprightness of your hearts
(Deut. ix, 5)
but because God loved your fathers and kept the oath
(Deut. vii, 8), thus shall it be with the converts of Israel who depart from the way of the people. Because God loved the first (men) who
⁸¹
testified in His favour, so will He love those who come after them, for the Covenant of the fathers is theirs. But He hated the
builders of the wall
and His anger was kindled (MS. B: against them and against all those who followed them); and so shall it be for all who reject the commandments of God and abandon them for the stubbornness of their hearts. This is the word which Jeremiah spoke to Baruch son of Neriah, and which Elisha spoke to his servant Gehazi.

None of the men who enter the New Covenant in the land of Damascus, (B
I)
and who again betray it and depart from the fountain of living waters, shall be reckoned with the Council of the people or inscribed in its Book from the day of the gathering in (B
II)
of the Teacher of the Community until the coming of the Messiah out of Aaron and Israel.

And thus shall it be for every man who enters the congregation of men of perfect holiness but faints in performing the duties of the upright. He is a man who has melted in the furnace (Ezek. xxii, 22); when his deeds are revealed he shall be expelled from the congregation as though his lot had never fallen among the disciples of God. The men of knowledge shall rebuke him in accordance with his sin against the time when he shall stand again before the Assembly of the men of perfect holiness. But when his deeds are revealed, according to the interpretation of the Law in which the men of perfect holiness walk, let no man defer to him with regard to money or work, for all the Holy Ones of the Most High have cursed him.

And thus shall it be for all among the first and the last who reject (the precepts), who set idols upon their hearts and walk in the stubbornness of their hearts; they shall have no share in the house of the Law. They shall be judged in the same manner as their companions were judged who deserted to the Scoffer. For they have spoken wrongly against the precepts of righteousness, and have despised the Covenant and the Pact - the New Covenant - which they made in the land of Damascus. Neither they nor their kin shall have any part in the house of the Law.

From the day of the gathering in of the Teacher of the Community until the end of all the men of war who deserted to the Liar there shall pass about forty years (Deut. ii, 14). And during that age the wrath of God shall be kindled against Israel; as He said,
There shall be no king, no prince, no judge, no man to rebuke with justice
(Hos. iii, 4). But those who turn from the sin of Jacob, who keep the Covenant of God, shall then speak each man to his fellow, to justify each man his brother, that their step may take the way of God. And God will heed their words and will hear, and a Book of Reminder shall be written before Him of them that fear God and worship His Name, against the time when salvation and righteousness shall be revealed to them that fear God.
And then shall you distinguish once more between the just and the wicked, between one that serves God and one that serves Him not
(Mal. iii, 18);
and He will show loving-kindness to thousands, to them that love Him and watch for Him, for a thousand generations
(Exod. xx, 6).

And every member of the House of Separation who went out of the Holy City and leaned on God at the time when Israel sinned and defiled the Temple, but returned again to the way of the people in small matters, shall be judged according to his spirit in the Council of Holiness. But when the glory of God is made manifest to Israel, all those members of the Covenant who have breached the bound of the Law shall be cut off from the midst of the camp, and with them all those who condemned Judah in the days of its trials.

But all those who hold fast to these precepts, going and coming in accordance with the Law, who heed the voice of the Teacher and confess before God, (saying), ‘Truly we have sinned, we and our fathers, by walking counter to the precepts of the Covenant, Thy judgements upon us are justice and truth'; who do not lift their hand against His holy precepts or His righteous statutes or His true testimonies; who have learned from the former judgements by which the members of the Community were judged; who have listened to the voice of the Teacher of Righteousness and have not despised the precepts of righteousness when they heard them; they shall rejoice and their hearts shall be strong, and they shall prevail over all the sons of the earth. God will forgive them and they shall see His salvation because they took refuge in His holy Name.
⁸²

... (He shall not)
XV
swear by (the Name), nor by
Aleph
and
Lamed
(Elohim), nor by
Aleph
and
Daleth
(Adonai), but a binding oath by the curses of the Covenant.

He shall not mention the Law of Moses for... were he to swear and then break (his oath) he would profane the Name.

But if he has sworn an oath by the curses of the Covenant before the judges and has transgressed it, then he is guilty and shall confess and make restitution; but he shall not be burdened with a capital sin.

And all those who have entered the Covenant, granted to all Israel for ever, shall make their children who have reached the age of enrolment, swear with the oath of the Covenant. And thus shall it be during all the age of wickedness for every man who repents of his corrupted way. On the day that he speaks to the Guardian of the congregation, they shall enrol him with the oath of the Covenant which Moses made with Israel, the Covenant to return to the Law of Moses with a whole heart and soul, to whatever is found should be done at that time. No man shall make known the statutes to him until he has stood before the Guardian, lest when examining him the Guardian be deceived by him. But if he transgresses after swearing to return to the Law of Moses with a whole heart and soul, they (the members) shall be innocent should he transgress. And should he err in any matter that is revealed of the Law to the multitude of the camp, the Guardian shall {instruct} (4Q
266
, fr. 8 i, 5) him and shall issue directions concerning him: he should stu[dy] for a full year.
⁸³
And according to his (the Guardian's) knowledge, {no madman, or lunatic shall enter, no simpleton, or fool, no blind man, or maimed, or lame, or deaf man, and no minor, none of these shall enter into the Community, for the Angels of Holiness are [in their midst]} (4Q266, fr. 8 i, 6-9).

(For God made)
XVI
a Covenant with you and all Israel; therefore a man shall bind himself by oath to return to the Law of Moses, for in it all things are strictly defined.

As for the exact determination of their times to which Israel turns a blind eye, behold it is strictly defined in the
Book of the Divisions of the Times into their Jubilees and Weeks.
And on the day that a man swears to return to the Law of Moses, the Angel of Persecution shall cease to follow him provided that he fulfils his word: for this reason Abraham circumcised himself on the day that he knew.

And concerning the saying,
You shall keep your vow by fulfilling it
(Deut. xxiii, 24), let no man, even at the price of death, annul any binding oath by which he has sworn to keep a commandment of the Law.

But even at the price of death, a man shall fulfil no vow by which he has sworn to depart from the Law.

Inasmuch as He said,
It is for her husband to cancel her oath
(Num. xxx, 9), no husband shall cancel an oath without knowing whether it should be kept or not. Should it be such as to lead to transgression of the Covenant, he shall cancel it and shall not let it be kept. The rule for her father is likewise.

No man shall vow to the altar anything unlawfully acquired. Also, no Priest shall take from Israel anything unlawfully acquired. And no man shall consecrate the food of his house to God, for it is as he said,
Each hunts his brother with a net
(or
votive-offering:
Mic. vii, 2). Let no man consecrate... And if he has consecrated to God some of his own field ... he who has made the vow shall be punished ... {[with] one sixth of his valuation money} (4Q
266
, fr. 8 ii, 2-3) ...

 

IX
⁸⁴
Every vow by which a man vows another to destruction (cf. Lev. xxvii, 29) by the laws of the Gentiles shall himself be put to death. And concerning the saying,
You shall not take vengeance on the children of your people, nor bear any rancour against them
(Lev. xix, 18), if any member of the Covenant accuses his companion without first rebuking him before
⁸⁵
witnesses; if he denounces him in the heat of his anger or reports him to his elders to make him look contemptible, he is one that takes vengeance and bears rancour, although it is expressly written,
He takes vengeance upon His adversaries and bears rancour against His enemies
(Nah. i, 2). If he holds his peace towards him from one day to another
⁸⁶
and thereafter speaks of him in the heat of his anger, he testifies against himself concerning a capital matter because he has not fulfilled the commandment of God which tells him:
You shall rebuke your companion and not be burdened with sin because of him
(Lev. xix, 17).