| Ordinances and Rituals The Essenes believed themselves to be the only true remnant of the covenant people of Israel. This is reflected in a prayer from Cave 1: But in the time of Thy goodwill Thou didst choose for Thyself a people. Thou didst remember Thy Covenant and [granted] that they should be set apart for Thyself from among all the peoples as a holy thing. And Thou didst renew for them Thy Covenant (founded)on a glorious vision and the words of Thy Holy [Spirit], on the works of Thy hands and the writing of Thy Right Hand, that they might know the foundations of glory and the steps toward eternity. 13
Entrance into the covenant consisted of a ritual initiation reminiscent of the covenant ceremony described in Deuteronomy 27 to 29. The Rule of the Community tells us that each initiate "shall take upon his soul by a binding oath to return to the Torah of Moses, according to all which he has commanded with all heart and with all soul" (1QS V 8). As recorded in the Rule of the Community, entrance to the community was a complex process that consisted of several steps: an examination, a one-year conditional membership, another examination, and another year of provisional membership followed by full membership—which consisted of giving up one’s private property to the community and receiving full fellowship in the community (1QS VI 13–24). Members of the covenant participated in a communal meal in which the bread and wine was blessed and distributed according to the hierarchy of the community. This meal was apparently considered a foreshadowing of the future messianic banquet. Members of the community gathered together and sat before the priest according their rank. The priest then blessed the firstfruits of the bread and the new wine and ate, followed by the rest of those who had gathered together (see 1QS VI 3–5). In obedience to the Bible the Essenes pursued a strict observance of sacred time—setting aside sacred days during which they remembered God and witnessed their faithfulness to the covenant. The most important of the days of worship was the Sabbath. From several of the documents at Qumran we can reconstruct their sacred calendar of 364 days, a number divisible by seven. The Qumran community observed the Feast of the Passover, Feast of Weeks, the Day of Atonement, and Feast of Tabernacles. In addition the Temple Scroll mentions several firstfruits festivals not mentioned in the Bible: New Barley, New Wine, New Oil, and a Wood-Offering Festival. 14
Repentance and Purification From Adam to Moses and down to the time of the Essenes, the need for repentance and purification was central to the worship of God. A short prayer from Qumran illustrates this: And he will bless there [the God of Israel. Answering, he will say: Blessed art Thou, God of Israel. And I stand] before Thee on the feas[t] . . . Thou hast . . . me for purity . . . and his burnt offering and he will bless. Answering he will say: Blessed art Thou, [God of Israel, who hast delivered me from al]l my sins and purified me from the impure indecency and hast atoned so that I come . . . purification and the blood of the burnt offering of Thy Goodwill and the pleasing memorial. 15Purification was symbolized at Qumran by ritual baths taken twice a day according to Josephus. 16 The ritual was not a mechanical one. The Rule of the Community tells us that the wicked "must not enter the water . . . for they cannot be cleansed unless they turn away from their wickedness" (1QS V 13–4).
Reading and Study of the Law The Rule of the Community succinctly describes the importance of the study of the word of God among the Essenes: When these become the Community in Israel they shall separate themselves from the session of the men of deceit in order to depart into the wilderness to prepare there the Way of the Lord (?); as it is written: "In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord, make level in the desert a highway for our God." This (alludes to) the study of the Torah wh[ic]h he commanded through Moses to do, according to everything which has been revealed (from) time to time, and according to that which the prophets have revealed by his Holy Spirit. (1QS VIII 12–6) And where there are ten (members) there must not be lacking there a man who studies the Torah day and night continually, each man relieving another. The Many shall spend the third part of every night of the year in unity, reading the Book, studying judgment, and saying benedictions in unity. (1QS VI 6–8) Study was intended to increase the understanding of the Law in order to further obedience, and this study was accompanied by prayer. These passages demonstrate the reverence the Essenes had for the word of God. Of particular interest are the various biblical commentaries called pesharim that were found at Qumran. The Qumran community believed that they lived in the last days, that all of the prophetic books in the Old Testament saw and prophesied of their day, and that the Teacher of Righteousness had the power to interpret these texts. The Qumran texts include pesharim on the biblical books of Hosea, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, and Psalms. Each of these commentaries cites a biblical passage line by line and then interprets the imagery and prophecies in these books as they apply to the Qumran community. For example, the destruction of the Chaldeans prophesied in Habakkuk is interpreted as the destruction of the Kittim—a reference to the Romans—and the arrogant man alluded to in Habakkuk 2:5–6 is interpreted as a reference to a Wicked Priest who persecuted the Teacher of Righteousness and the community at Qumran. These commentaries show how the community at Qumran viewed themselves and their role in the last days.
Blessing and Praising the Name of the Lord Many texts from Qumran contain hymns of praise and thanksgiving. Some of these are clearly prayers, others are identified as hymns inasmuch as they are not specifically addressed to God and refer to him in the third person. The most remarkable of these texts is a collection of over thirty hymns found in one of the original seven scrolls. The collection is called the Thanksgiving Hymns, or in Hebrew, the Hodayot—a passage of which we will look at below. I have the privilege of working with Professor Moshe Weinfeld of Hebrew University on a collection of six small scrolls from Cave 4. Five of these scrolls are part of Barki Nafshi—a single text of hymns blessing the Lord, named after the opening phrase Bless, O My Soul. The first several lines of one of the text read as follows: Bless, O my soul, the Lord, for all his wonders forever, and blessed be his name. For he has delivered the soul of the poor and the humble he has not despised, and he has not forgotten the distress of the helpless. He has opened his eyes to the helpless, and the cry of the orphans he has heard, and he has turned his ears to their cry. In the abundance of his mercy he was gracious to the needy and he has opened their eyes to see his ways and their ears to hear his teaching. And he circumcised the foreskin of their heart and he delivered them because of his grace and he set their feet to the way. 17Here God is portrayed as the champion of the poor, the humble, and the helpless. As he has opened his eyes to their plight and his ears to their cry, so has he the power to open their eyes to see his ways and their ears to hear his teaching, and most importantly he has "circumcised the foreskin of their heart" and has set their feet to "the way." Elsewhere in Barki Nafshi there is reference to the fact that the Lord "gave them another heart" (4Q434 1 i 10). Another passage states, "My heart thou hast commanded it and my inmost parts thou hast taught well, lest thy statutes be forgotten" (4Q436 1 i 5). The Qumran community understood that true religion can only be judged by the internal man and not just by external acts, and they sang praises to the God who had the power to change their hearts.
Introduction | Section 1 | Section 2 | Conclusion and Notes |
