dssdead-sea-scrolls
E — Wisdom Literature
Part 11
A liturgical curse-prayer against spirits of wickedness, fragmentary but structurally clear: the speaker attributes his open mouth to the fear of God and the enabling of the holy spirit, while God has placed in his heart the spirit of knowledge, understanding, truth, and righteousness. That interior endowment is the ground from which the curser speaks — the inner temple ordered before the outer battle is joined. The speaker is called to fortify himself by God's precepts and fight the spirit of wickedness, whose curse closes the surviving text. The pattern is the Holy Order's interior-to-exterior movement: alignment within, then authority to bind without.
1
The main purpose of the person reciting this prayer, of which six small fragments have survived, is to curse the spirits of wickedness. The genre is the same as 4Q510-11. For the editio princeps, see E. Chazon, DJD, XXIX, 367-78. Fr. 1-4 i I As for me, on account of my fear of God He has opened my mouth, And through His holy spirit.. truth for all these. They have become spirits of dispute in my body, Precepts of.. from the frame of the flesh. And God has placed in my heart the spirit of knowledge and understanding, truth and righteousness.. And fortify yourself by the precepts of God, And to fight against the spirit of wickedness and not.. His judgements. Cursed be..
