B — Hymns and Poems

Lamentations (4Q]179,4Q501)

1Several fragments of a poem inspired by the biblical Book of Lamentations have been preserved in Cave 4 (4Q179). Only fragment 2 offers a text long enough for intelligible translation. See J. M. Allegro and A. A. Anderson, DJD, V, 75-7; cf. J. Strugnell, RQ 7 (1970), 250- 52. A second work of a similar nature (4Q501) has appeared in M. Baillet, DJD, VII, 79-80. Both texts are dated to the second half of the first century BCE. 4Q179, fr. 2 [How] solitary [lies] the city, the princess of all the peoples is desolate like a forsaken woman; and all her [daughters are forsak[en] [like] a forsaken woman, like a woman hurt and forsaken by her [husband]. All her palaces and [her] wal[ls] are like a barren woman; and like a sheltered woman are all [her] paths; [all her] ... like a woman of bitterness, and all her daughters are like women mourning for [their] hus[bands]; [all her] ... like women deprived of their only children. Weep, weep, Jer[usalem]

2[her tears flow] upon her cheeks because of her sons ... 4Q501 Give not our inheritance to strangers, nor our (hard-earned) property to foreigners. Remember that we are [the forsaken] of Thy people and the forsaken of Thine inheritance. Remember the desolate children of Thy Covenant... T[hy] freely devoted ... ; they err with no one to bring them back; they are broken with none to bind them; [they are bent down with none to ra]ise them up. The damned of Thy people have surrounded me with their lying tongues. They have been turned ... and Thy boughs to the progeny of a woman. Look and see the shame of the sons of [Thy people (?), for] our skin [is burning] and feverish heat has seized us because of their reviling tongue.