dssdead-sea-scrolls
D — Historical and Apocalyptic Works
Part 4
A surviving fragment of 4Q215a describes the close of the age of wickedness and the opening of the age of righteousness — not as speculation but as accomplished fact within the poem's frame. The elect are refined through constraint and the ordeal of the pit, their wickedness blotted out by covenant lovingkindness. The earth fills with knowledge and praise of Jehovah; peace, truth, and testimony of righteousness become the governing order. Every soul prostrates and the covenant people become one heart. Foreordination anchors the whole: God assigned the service of righteousness as the elect's boundaries before they were created, and now raises the throne of the kingdom.
1
Previously classified as part of the Testament of Naphtali, the four fragments of 4Q215a, of which only one is translatable, belong to a work of poetic eschatology. The subject is the end of wickedness and the portrayal of final blessedness. For the editio princeps, see E. Chazon and M. Stone, DJD, XXXVI, 172-86. Fr. ii.. and the stressful constraint and the ordeal of the pit and they shall be refined by them to become the elect of righteousness, and all their wickedness will be blotted out because of His loving-kindness. For the age of wickedness is complete and all injustice has passed away. For the time of righteousness has come and the earth is full with knowledge and the praise of God. In the days of.. has come the age of peace and the precepts of truth and the testimony of righteousness to make one understand the ways of God and the might of His deeds for ever and ever. Every.. shall bless Him and every man shall prostrate himself before Him. And they shall have one heart. For He knows their recompense before they were created and had assigned the service of righteousness as their boundaries.. in their generations. For the dominion of righteousness/of goodness has come and He shall raise up the throne of the kingdom, and intelligence is greatly exalted; prudence and soundness are tried by His holy design..
