Nahum Commentary

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The Nahum Commentary or Pesher Nahum, labelled 4QpNah (Cave 4, Qumran, pesher, Nahum) or 4Q169, was among the Dead Sea Scrolls in cave 4 of Qumran that was discovered in August 1952. The editio princeps of the text is to be found in DJD V., edited by John Allegro. The text is described thus: 'one of the "continuous pesharim" from Qumran, successive verses from the biblical Book of Nahum are interpreted as reflecting historical realities of the 1st century BCE." [1]

Contents

Text

The most clearly historical references in the text can be found in Fragments 3-4 Column 1, which cites Nahum 2:11b, "Where the lion goes to enter, there also goes the whelp..." and provides the commentary,

"[This refers to Deme]trius, king of Greece, who sought to enter Jerusalem through the counsel of the Flattery-Seekers; [but it never fell into the] power of the kings of Greece from Antiochus until the appearance of the rulers of the kittim...." [2]

According to Larry R. Helyer (as well as to many other scholars), Demetrius in this text is Demetrius III Eucaerus (95-88 BCE), the Seleucid king who defeated Alexander Jannaeus in battle, but was forced to withdraw back to Syria. [3]

The text refers to the biblical passages from Nahum 1:3-6; 2:12-14; 3:1-5, 6-9, 10-12, 14. [4]

See also

Bibliography

References

  1. Shani L. Berrin (2004). The Pesher Nahum Scroll from Qumran: An Exegetical Study of 4Q169. Brill. p. 1.
  2. Translation by E.M. Cook in Michael Wise; Martin Abegg Jr; Edward Cook, eds. (1996). The Dead Sea Scrolls: A New Translation . HarperSanFrancisco. p.  217.
  3. Larry R. Helyer, Exploring Jewish Literature of the Second Temple Period. InterVarsity Press, 2002 ISBN   0830826785
  4. Fitzmyer, Joseph A. (2008). A Guide to the Dead Sea Scrolls and Related Literature. Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company. p. 49. ISBN   9780802862419 . Retrieved February 15, 2019.