dssdead-sea-scrolls
E — Wisdom Literature
Part 10
A badly damaged poetic lament, spoken by a leader whose community has collapsed around him — judges turned foolish, righteous men rendered simple, traitors multiplying, and the city overtaken by thorns. The surviving lines show a leader who had labored to assemble the righteous, establish a covenant path, and secure an inheritance for his company, but now weeps at the ruin of that work. The weeping eyes framed as a spring of water echo the classic prophetic lament posture. The text is too fragmentary to press further without invention.
1
A Leader's Lament Two small fragments have survived of a poetic lament by a person in authority. The text is too small to allow us to determine whether these are the words or pseudepigraphic words of a head of the sectarian community. For the editio princeps, see M. Weinfeld and D. Seely, DJD, XXIX, 335-41. Fr. i I.. to assemble the righteous of my people and to establish the way of life.. to bring into the covenant the men of my company.. my inheritance. Therefore my eyes are a spring of water.. discipline and those who will stand up after them, who.. And behold my whole city has changed into thorns.. Behold all my judges have become foolish.. my righteous ones simple-minded, who.. traitors..
