dssdead-sea-scrolls
C — Calendars, Liturgies and Prayers
Part 6
A fragmentary liturgical scroll from Cave 1, dated to the late first century BCE, prescribes specific counts of songs and words of praise to be performed during the night and day watches of consecutive days of the month — the eighth, ninth, and tenth days preserved in fragments 2–4. The precision of the prescription, with differing tallies for night and day, reflects a calendar-anchored worship structure governed by the Moedim pattern: sacred time is not ambient but measured, with each division of the day carrying its appointed weight of praise before Jehovah.
1
Cave has yielded seven fragments of a liturgical work made up of six columns, listing the number of songs and words of praise to be sung during the night and during the day on consecutive days of the month. Only frs. 2-4 can be built up into a coherent text. The script is dated to the end of the first century BCE. For the editio princeps, see U. Glessmer, DJD, XXI, 167-94. Frs. 2-4 And on the eighth of it at night: eight songs and forty-.. words of praise, and during the day:. songs and sixteen words of praise. And on the ninth of it at night: eight songs and forty-two words of praise, and during the day:. songs and.. words of praise. And on the tenth of it at night: eight songs and.. words of praise, and during the day:. songs and twenty words of praise..
