2.3 Qumran
2.3.1.2 Summary
1QM describes the condition of the community in the last days as one of intense suffering and refining.16 This testing evidently takes the form of the battle against all the nations, for which the language of Zech 14 is used. Zechariah 14:5 plausibly influences the notion that “the holy ones” would assist the people of God in the battle. These features, while not identical to the proposed reading of Mark 13, nonetheless provide significant parallels. Specifically, as I argue in subsequent chapters, Mark uses Zech 13–14 to depict 1) the testing of God’s covenantal people, 2) a militaristic attack upon Jerusalem, and 3) the assistance of God’s elect by the Son of Man and “the holy angels.” 1QM,
therefore, presents a pattern of reading and of utilizing Zech 14 that makes plausible its proposed use in Mark 13. I turn now to 4QTanḥûmîm (4Q176).
15 Yadin (1962, 237) cites Ex 23.20; 33.2; 2 Kgs 19:35; 2 Chr. 32:21; Ps. 31:6. See also Michalak 2012, 16–56. He
traces the development of the tradition of angels as warriors in God’s divine retinue.
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2.3.2: 4Q176
4QTanḥûmîm is a fascinating text.17 It contains 54 fragments that comprise four or five columns,18 and can be cautiously dated to about the middle of the first century BCE.19 The text is extremely fragmentary, thus the conclusion regarding the number of columns is the result of
reconstruction.20 An intriguing aspect of the text is that it contains a string of seven quotations from Isa 40–55 without textual comment. That is, the texts are quoted and arranged in their “canonical” order, and the document does not alternate between text and explanation; rather, it proceeds from quotation to quotation. The quotations are often nearly verbatim, thus use of a Vorlage is presumed, though this of course cannot be proven.21 The text often agrees with 1QIsaa against MT, but the data provided by 4Q176 cannot secure the use IQIsaa.22 The passages quoted from Isaiah are: 40:1–5; 41:8–10; 43:1–7; 44:3; 49:7, 13–17; 51:22–52:3; and 54:4–10. The document as it stands functions analogously to the Greco-Roman compilations of extracts and quotations.23 Such compilations facilitate access to extensive material without having to search the original source repeatedly. Thus the quotations from Isaiah were presumably compiled for accessibility, either because of the meaning already attached to them by the compiler/community, or for future consultation, or both.
Importantly, the text does not only contain quotations from Isaiah. In addition to an introductory invocation based on Ps 79, and a few fragments of non-biblical material in columns separate from the Isaiah quotations, there is also one other single quotation: Zech 13:9. Based on reconstruction, it appears that the document begins with an allusion or paraphrase of Ps 79, which acts as a prayer for God to act on behalf of his people. Then the quotations from Isaiah are introduced by the phrase, “And from the book of Isaiah: words of consolation” (םימוחנת). Then proceed the seven passages from Isa 40–55. The end of the string of quotations is marked by another text that says “the words of
17 The secondary literature on 4Q176 is sparse. The majority of it is represented here.
18 As pictured in DJD V, it contains 57 fragments. Menahem Kister, however, concluded that three of the fragments
(19–21) belonged to Jubilees; see Kister 1987, 529–36. His conclusions have been followed by many Qumran scholars. This is noted by Jesper Høgenhaven 2007, 99–123.
19 Høgenhaven 2007, 101.
20 The conclusion that it contains five columns is based on the reconstruction by Strugnell 1970, 163–276. His
conclusion is followed, more or less, by several scholars of 4Q176. Stanley agrees there were at least four columns, but is not certain about the fifth; C.D. Stanley 1992, 569–82. Høgenhaven agrees with Strugnell’s claim and tries to advance it by arguing for a particular arrangement of those five columns. See Høgenhaven 2011, 151–68.
21 So Stanley 1992, 576.
22 Høgenhaven 2007, 109–110.
consolations,” which acts as an inclusio. Then follows the fragmentary, non-biblical material, another quotation from Isa 52, and the quotation of Zech 13:9.24
The presupposition of 4Q176 is that God’s people are distressed and afflicted. Hence the text opens with a prayer that God act to relieve or comfort them. Following the invocation comes the string of quotations from Isaiah which declare that God will redeem his people from their dire conditions. Each quotation from Isaiah is a word from God in the first person, promising to rescue his people.25 The latter conditions seem to be the criteria of selecting those texts from Isaiah. Stanley summarizes this position well: “In every instance Yahweh speaks in the first person to his downtrodden people Israel, assuring them of his continued love and faithfulness and promising them a future restoration to an even more glorious state.”26 For this reason, the inclusion of Zech 13:9 in this compilation is significant.
Zechariah 13:9 too is a speech from God in the first person to his covenantal people. The verse declares that God will take them through the fire in order to test and refine them, but that in the end, they will call on him, and he will answer, “You are my people.” Its inclusion in this compilation indicates that Zech 13:9 was interpreted to refer to the eschatological affliction of the people of God that would precede God’s great act of redemption. Two features of the text support this hypothesis. First, the text meets the criteria of the passages selected from Isaiah: a first person address by God to Israel that pertains to their suffering, yet promises deliverance. Second, the quotation of Zech 13:9 is without a surrounding context, and its fragmentary nature precludes knowing its precise placement within the overall text. There are, however, two scribal hands at work in 4Q176, and the hand that produced the quotations from Isa 40–55 also produced Zech 13:9.27 That it is an isolated quotation without comment suggests a function and significance similar to that of the quotations from Isaiah. Thus 4Q176
understands Zech 13:9 to refer to the eschatological affliction that the people of God would necessarily undergo before God’s redemptive act. If these arguments are sound, 4Q176 presents a use of Zech 13:9 that perfectly exemplifies its proposed use in Mark, where the suffering of the disciples is that which necessarily precedes God’s final deliverance. The use of Zech 13:9 in Mark is partially detected in Mark
24 This reconstruction follows Høgenhaven 2007, who is himself indebted to Strugnell 1970 and Stanley 1992.
25 Technically the first quotation is from Isa 40:1–5, which is not the direct speech of God, but the words are God’s
directions to the prophet of what to say Israel, thus the description is fair.
26 Stanley 1992, 576–77. He is followed by Høgenhaven 2011, 165.
38 9:49 via the necessity of the disciples being “salted with fire,”28 and because their suffering occurs as a consequence of Jesus’ being “stricken” (Zech 13:7). I turn now to the final relevant text from Qumran.