A — The Rules

Chapter 7

Premium narration

Of the two groups of fragments belonging to Ma, the first echoes sections from columns II, VII, and of 1QM, but it also contains passages without parallels there. The second unit, a poem, entitled by the editor 'The Song of Michael and of the Just', is additional to 1QM. As for the manuscript designated Mc, its surviving lines recall 1QM VII, xvi, etc. but do not represent the same recension. Ma = 4Q491, frs. 1-3.. There shall be one thousand cubits between the camp and the latrine and no nakedness whatever shall be seen in their surroundings. And when they set out to prepare the battle to curb the enemy, there shall be among them some exempted in the lot of each tribe according to their numbered men for each day's duty. On that day, some men from all their tribes shall set out from their camps towards the House of Meeting.. the Priests, the Levites, and all the chiefs of the camps shall go out towards them. They will pass there before.. according to the Thousands, Hundreds, Fifties and Tens. Whoever shall not be clean because of his 'fount' on that night shall not go with them to the battle, for the holy angels shall be with their formations together.. When the formation called up for that day's battle to pass to all.. of the war, three formations shall stand, formations behind formations. They shall set a space between all the formations and they shall go out to battle in succession. These are the foot-soldiers and beside them the horsemen. [They shall stand

between the forma]tions. And if they set up an ambush for a formation, the three ambushing formations shall be at a distance and shall not rise.. of the war and they shall hear the trumpets of Alarm and the foot-soldiers will begin to bring down the guilty dead. Afterwards the ambush shall rise from its hiding-place arranged in formations. The reassembly: from the right and from the left, from behind and from the front, four directions.. in the battles of annihilation. And all the formations engaged in combat with the enemy will be in one place. The first formation will go out to the battle and the second stand.. on their post. With the completion of their time, the first shall return and rise.. The second.. When the battle is joined. And the second formation shall have completed its time and they shall return and stand on their post. And the third.. And the chief Priest and his brethren, the Priests, and the Levites and the men of the order shall stand. And the Priests shall blow the trumpets continuously.. and a girdle of fine cloth of flax embroidered with blue, purple and scarlet threads, a many-coloured design produced by a craftsman, and a fine linen tunic and fine linen breeches and a mitred turban on their heads. They shall not take them to the sanctuary for they are battle raiments. According to all this rule..