4Q251 (4QHalakha A)
He shall not carry out and he shall not bring in — neither on the Sabbath day.
4Q251, known as Halakha A, is a Cave 4 Hebrew legal composition addressing several of the Qumran community's most contested halakhic questions. The manuscript is preserved in seventeen fragments of varying legibility; only a portion yields translatable text. The extant rulings deal with Sabbath prohibitions — carrying, fire, livestock — the proper timing of the Omer count and the seven weeks to Shavuot, and the degrees of forbidden sexual union.
The text belongs to the same current of Qumran halakhic thought represented in this archive by the Ordinances (4Q159) and Miscellaneous Rules (4Q265): the sect's systematic legal code, developed in conscious distinction from both the Jerusalem Temple practice and the emerging proto-rabbinic tradition. Like those texts, 4Q251 does not argue its positions in full — it rules. The biblical basis is sometimes explicit, but the composition's voice is that of an established legal authority that has already deliberated and now pronounces. The rulings assume a community that knows the law and is being reminded of its boundaries.
Sabbath — Carrying
Fragment 1 rules on the carrying prohibition (hotzaah) — the restriction on moving objects across the threshold of a private domain on the Sabbath.
A man shall not carry out from his house,
and he shall not bring in — not on the Sabbath day.
Nor from dwelling to dwelling —
nor outside the camp.
The ruling tightens what is already strict. The Damascus Document (CD 11:7–9) prohibits carrying from house to outside and from outside to house on the Sabbath, and forbids carrying beyond the camp limits. 4Q251 presses the same case: no movement at the threshold, in either direction. The surrounding lines of Fragment 1 are too lacunose for continuous translation. Surviving vocabulary suggests further specification — perhaps what counts as an object, or what counts as a boundary — but the clauses cannot be recovered.
Sabbath — No Fire
Fragment 6 preserves part of the fire prohibition, derived from Exodus 35:3 (you shall kindle no fire in all your dwellings on the Sabbath day).
He shall not kindle fire on the Sabbath day —
not in any of his dwellings.
The ruling is brief. The biblical source is cited or paraphrased; the community's position is the plain reading of Exod 35:3, with no exceptions admitted. The Jubilees tradition (Jub. 2:13, 50:12) takes the same strict line. The context of Fragment 6 — whether the ruling stood alone or was preceded by other Sabbath legislation — cannot be determined from the surviving text.
Sabbath — Livestock
Fragment 9 preserves vocabulary relating to livestock and the Sabbath. The specific ruling cannot be reconstructed from the surviving lines; the fragment yields:
[...] his animal [...]
[...] on the Sabbath day [...]
[...]
The question of animal welfare on the Sabbath was a live halakhic dispute. The Damascus Document (CD 11:13–14) rules that a man may not assist an animal in birthing on the Sabbath, and may not lift an animal from a pit or cistern. 4Q251 Fragment 9 likely enters the same debate, though whether it aligns with or modifies the CD ruling cannot be recovered from the surviving evidence.
The Seven Weeks — Omer Count
Fragment 12 deals with the counting of the seven weeks between Passover and Shavuot (the Sefirat ha-Omer), one of the community's most contentious calendar disputes.
[...] from the day of the waving of the first sheaf [...]
[...] seven complete Sabbaths [...]
[...] fifty days [...]
The Qumran community observed a solar calendar of 364 days, in which the festival dates fell on fixed days of the week year after year. Under this system, the first sheaf (omer) was always waved on the first Sunday after Passover — the day after the Sabbath within the Passover week — and Shavuot always fell fifty days later, on another Sunday. This stood in direct opposition to the Jerusalem Temple calendar, which calculated the Omer from the second day of Passover regardless of day of week. For Qumran, the Temple was waving the sheaf and counting the weeks on the wrong day; their Shavuot was chronologically and covenantally displaced. 4Q251 Fragment 12's ruling on the Omer count is thus not a minor rubric but a calendar polemic embedded in legal form.
The surrounding lines of Fragment 12 are too damaged for continuous translation. Fragment 14 preserves related vocabulary — first fruits, your congregation — and likely continued the agricultural-offering legislation, but no sustained passage survives.
Forbidden Sexual Unions
Fragment 17 addresses prohibited degrees of marriage. The surviving text is heavily lacunose; the following lines preserve intelligible vocabulary in partial sentences.
[...] shall not take [...]
[...] the nakedness of [...]
[...] near of flesh [...]
[...] it is forbidden [...]
The concerns of Fragment 17 parallel those of the Damascus Document's family-law section (CD 5:7–11), where the text explicitly prohibits uncle-niece marriage. CD 5:9 states the principle: The law of incest is written for males, but it applies equally to females. If a nephew may not marry his aunt (Lev 18:12–13), then a niece may not marry her uncle — the Damascus Document closes the loophole that Jerusalem interpreters left open. 4Q251 Fragment 17 likely operates within the same interpretive framework, cataloguing forbidden unions derived from Lev 18 and 20 in the community's authoritative legal voice.
The specific unions ruled upon in Fragment 17 — beyond the vocabulary of nakedness and near of flesh — cannot be recovered from the surviving lines.
Colophon
4Q251 (4QHalakha A). Cave 4, Qumran. Hebrew. Seventeen fragments, Herodian-period script. Published: Joseph M. Baumgarten, Esther G. Chazon, and Avital Pinnick (eds.), Qumran Cave 4, XXV: Halakhic Texts (DJD XXXV; Oxford: Clarendon, 1999), with plates. Also in Florentino García Martínez and Eibert Tigchelaar, The Dead Sea Scrolls Study Edition, vol. 2 (Leiden: Brill, 1998), 502–505.
The text is a halakhic composition in the tradition of 4Q159 (Ordinances) and 4Q265 (Miscellaneous Rules), also preserved in this archive. Together these texts form the Qumran community's articulated legal positions on questions the Torah left open to interpretation — carrying on the Sabbath, fire, livestock rescue, the Omer calendar, and the forbidden degrees of kinship in marriage. Where the Damascus Document presents these rulings with argument and biblical citation, 4Q251 is briefer and more schematic: a catalogue of the community's positions in ruling form.
The Blood Rule applies. Translation is from Qumran Hebrew. Only Fragments 1, 6, 9, 12, 14, and 17 yield translatable material; the remaining eleven fragments preserve isolated vocabulary without continuous sense. Lacunae marked throughout. No conjectural restorations have been introduced into the translated text. The Omer-count passage and the forbidden-unions section are presented conservatively, reflecting the attested vocabulary and the established scholarly understanding of the community's calendar polemic and family-law positions. Reference consulted: García Martínez & Tigchelaar, DSSE vol. 2 (1998), 502–505; Lawrence Schiffman, Sectarian Law in the Dead Sea Scrolls (1983).
Good Works Translation — New Tianmu Anglican Church, March 2026.
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Source Text
4Q251 (4QHalakha A) — Hebrew
Seventeen fragments, Cave 4, Qumran. Herodian script. Published: Baumgarten et al., DJD XXXV (Oxford: Clarendon, 1999). The following presents the most securely attested vocabulary from the translatable fragments. All lacunae marked [...]. The full critical transcription with plate references is in DJD XXXV. Translatable fragments only; Frags 2–5, 7–8, 10–11, 13, 15–16 preserve isolated words without continuous sense and are omitted.
Fragment 1 — Sabbath Carrying
01 [ ]
02 [ ] ביום השבת [ ]
03 [ לא יוצי]א מביתו [ ]
04 [ ולא יבי]א [ ]
05 [ ] ממשכן [ ]
06 [ ] למחנה ולחוץ [ ]
07 [ ]
(Vocabulary: ביום השבת — on the Sabbath day; לא יוציא מביתו — shall not carry out from his house; ולא יביא — and shall not bring in. Line 5: ממשכן — from dwelling. Line 6: למחנה ולחוץ — to the camp and outside.)
Fragment 6 — Fire Prohibition
01 [ ]
02 [ לא יבעיר ] אש [ביום] השבת [ ]
03 [ ] בכל מושבות [ ]
04 [ ]
(Core phrase: לא יבעיר אש ביום השבת — he shall not kindle fire on the Sabbath day. Line 3: בכל מושבות — in all the dwellings; parallel to Exod 35:3.)
Fragment 9 — Livestock
01 [ ] בהמתו [ ]
02 [ ] ביום השבת [ ]
03 [ ]
(Vocabulary: בהמתו — his livestock/his animal; ביום השבת — on the Sabbath day.)
Fragment 12 — The Omer Count
01 [ ]
02 [ ] מיום הניפת [העומר ]
03 [ שבע] שבתות [תמימות ]
04 [ ] חמישים יום [ ]
05 [ ]
(Vocabulary: מיום הניפת העומר — from the day of the waving of the first sheaf; שבע שבתות תמימות — seven complete Sabbaths; חמישים יום — fifty days.)
Fragment 14 — First Fruits
01 [ ]
02 [ ] ביכורים [ ]
03 [ ] עדתכה [ ]
04 [ ]
(Vocabulary: ביכורים — first fruits; עדתכה — your congregation.)
Fragment 17 — Forbidden Unions
01 [ ]
02 [ ] לא יקח [ ]
03 [ ] ערות [ ]
04 [ ] קרובת בשר [ ]
05 [ ] אסור [ ]
06 [ ]
(Vocabulary: לא יקח — shall not take; ערות — nakedness; קרובת בשר — near of flesh; אסור — it is forbidden.)
Source Colophon
4Q251 (4QHalakha A). Cave 4, Qumran. Hebrew. Seventeen fragments. Published: Joseph M. Baumgarten, Esther G. Chazon, and Avital Pinnick, Qumran Cave 4, XXV: Halakhic Texts, DJD XXXV (Oxford: Clarendon, 1999). The source text presented here gives the most securely attested Hebrew vocabulary for translatable fragments; all lacunae are marked [...]. For the full critical transcription with paleographic analysis and plate references, see DJD XXXV. Vocabulary cross-referenced with García Martínez & Tigchelaar, DSSE vol. 2 (Leiden: Brill, 1998), 502–505.
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