For who is like my Lord? There is no God like ours — none like him, none mighty to help us, a warrior to save us.
Introduction
4Q460 is a Cave 4 Hebrew manuscript from the first century BCE, found during the 1952 Cave 4 excavations and published by Esther Chazon, Torleif Elgvin, and others in Discoveries in the Judaean Desert XXXVI (Oxford: Clarendon, 2000). The scroll preserves nine fragments of uncertain genre — the DJD editors classified it as a "Narrative and Poetic Work" because the fragments resist easy categorization. Three fragments yield sufficient text for translation.
Fragment 5 preserves a narrative touching on a beloved figure and the theme of election — language suggestive of the Davidic tradition (ידיד, beloved, is the alternate name given to Solomon at birth, 2 Sam 12:25). Fragment 7 is a wisdom or prophetic challenge to earthly power: kings and armies and weapons of war are nothing before the Lord. Fragment 9 opens with the simplest piece: a blessing formula. Fragment 6 enters the mode of classical prophecy — a divine confrontation with Ephraim and Israel in the language of Hosea and Isaiah, promising that the Lord will return every schemer's words upon their own mouths.
Whether these fragments represent a single composition of varied style or several compositions bound together in one scroll cannot be determined from the evidence. What remains is three windows into a Hebrew theological imagination: election, the futility of power, and the accounting of nations.
Fragments 1–4 and 8–9 are too damaged for continuous translation.
Fragment 9 — The Blessing
And he said: Blessed be the Lord.
[...] and give to you [...]
[...] the everlasting [...]
Fragment 5 — The Beloved
[...]
She was not his choosing — [yet] he loved [her]...
His beloved.
He called her name [...]
And he chose him.
To honor him [...].
Do not fear from all distress.
From all anguish and trouble.
For tribulations shall surround —
and [yet] do not fear on that day.
For then: hold fast to the commandments.
For it is a time of trouble.
Fragment 7 — Do Not Boast
Do not boast in your might, O earth.
Kings in their armies and their strength,
in their dominion —
warriors and their hosts,
their weapons of war,
their cities of strength —
For who is like my Lord?
There is no God like ours.
There is none like him.
None mighty to help us,
none a warrior to save us,
none whose arm delivers us.
Fragment 6 — The Confrontation with Ephraim
[...] for terror before you,
for turmoil in Israel
and horror in Ephraim.
[...] the earth is full [of ruin].
For the Most High will lay the heights to desolation,
a generation for a generation.
[...] you did not abandon [them] — to serve you.
My Lord. My Father.
[...] who will rebuke what has been forsaken?
In your abandoning your God, O Israel —
not one shall escape in Ephraim.
The LORD will return all your scheming
upon your mouth.
Ephraim: exiled.
Israel: desolations.
[...] did not know.
For Israel multiplied to provoke before you,
your God.
Colophon
Narrative and Poetic Work translates the recoverable content of 4Q460 (Cave 4, Hebrew, first century BCE). The manuscript was found in the 1952 Cave 4 excavations and published by Esther Chazon, Torleif Elgvin, et al. in Discoveries in the Judaean Desert XXXVI (Oxford: Clarendon, 2000). The nine fragments resist a unified genre classification; Fragments 5, 7, and 9 yield the most continuous text.
Translation from Hebrew by the New Tianmu Anglican Church, 2026. Hebrew source text drawn from the Qimron Composite Edition (Elisha Qimron, The Dead Sea Scrolls: The Hebrew and Aramaic Texts, Yad Ben-Zvi Press, 2010; digital edition Zenodo 2020, CC BY 4.0), decoded from Miqdas Type1 font using the established character map and per-word reversal algorithm. Lacunae marked [...].
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