Tuesday, November 14, 2023

Donald W. Parry on the omission of ‎שׁרת in Isaiah 56:6 in the Great Isaiah Scroll

  

With the omitting of ‎לְשָׁ֣רְת֔וֹ and the change to ולברך, Paul calls these alternations “tendentious . . . since according to the Qumran sect, identified with the priestly house of Zadok, it was forbidden to permit the participation of non-Levites, let alone non-Israelites, in the cult. This ideology is explicitly expressed in the Florilegium (4Q174 3-4).” Before Paul, Rubinstein brought forth similar arguments, also suggesting that 1QIsaa omitted לשרתו, thus effectively bringing 56:6 into alignment with the Isaianic teaching set forth in 14:1-2, e.g., Israel will make foreigners (הַגֵּר) as “servants and handmaids.” And Tov prefers MT’s reading, stating that “the reading of 1QIsaa follows the more frequent phrase (e.g. Ps 113:2), also occurring often in the Jewish liturgy.” After a review of all the evidence, it is clear that the reading of 1QIsaa contains secondary elements. (Donald W. Parry, Exploring the Isaiah Scrolls and Their Textual Variants [Supplements to the Textual History of the Bible 3; Leiden: Brill, 2020], 387)

 

4Q174 3-4, referenced above, reads thusly:

 

3 [Moses: Exod 15:17-18 « The temple of] yhwh your hands will est[a]blish. yhwh shall reign for ever and ever ». This (refers to) the house into which shall not enter 4 [… for] ever either an Ammonite, or a Moabite, or a bastard, or a foreigner, or a proselyte, never, because his holy ones are there. (Florentino García Martínez and Eibert J. C. Tigchelaar, The Dead Sea Scrolls Study Edition [Leiden: Brill, 1999], 353)