"They did not turn from their evil way or from the evil of their doings."
— 4Q468i, apparatus-confirmed after Jeremiah 25:5

4Q468i — Cave 4 Hebrew Fragment — Dead Sea Scrolls

4Q468i is a six-line Hebrew fragment from Qumran Cave 4, published in Eliezer Tigchelaar's 2008 re-edition, "The Evil Inclination in the Dead Sea Scrolls, with a Re-edition of 4Q468i (4QSectarian Text?)." The manuscript is highly fragmentary, with most lines damaged at both ends, but the apparatus-confirmed readings reveal a sectarian rebuke text in the Deuteronomistic tradition.

The fragment's dominant vocabulary is the classic prophetic diagnosis of Israel's failure: the stiff neck (ערף, the idiom of stubborn refusal running from Exodus through Deuteronomy), the evil inclination of the heart (יצר הרע), and the Jeremiah formula of turning from evil ways. Line 2 apparatus confirms Jeremiah 25:5 almost verbatim — they did not turn them from their evil way and from the evil of their doings — which Jeremiah himself employs as a refrain for the prophets' failed mission to Jerusalem before the exile. Line 4 adds they did not turn from their desires, and the partially legible they turned aside, extending the portrait of deliberate rejection.

The Qimron apparatus also notes a Jeremiah 23:22 parallel, where God declares that if a prophet had stood in his council he would have turned the people from their evil way — the same phrase here inverted into a chronicle of failure. The stiff neck (כי חזק ערפם) in line 2 echoes Deuteronomy 9:6, 9:13, and Jeremiah 7:26, the great exilic indictment passages.

Tigchelaar identifies this text as connected to the Dead Sea Scrolls' broader concern with the yetzer ha-ra — the evil inclination embedded in human nature. The Community Rule and the Damascus Document both frame the sect's founding as God's intervention against Israel's blind following of the inclination of a guilty heart. This fragment may belong to that hortatory tradition: a brief meditation on why the wider Israel failed, and what the sectarian community has been preserved from.

Line 1 and line 6 are too damaged for translation. Lines 3–5 are partially legible. All lacunae are marked with [...].

Fragments

[...] [...]

For their neck was stiff [...] prophets raised up for them —
and who [...]

They did not turn them from their evil way
or from the evil of their doings.
For [she/he] preserved [his/their] lovingkindness,
for [from his/their] youth [...]

They rejected her statutes and did not [...]
[keeping/guarding] from all with their heart [...]

[...] enemy [...]

Colophon

A Good Works Translation of 4Q468i. Translated from Hebrew by Tulku and Autumn (the Miko), New Tianmu Anglican Church, 2026. Working from apparatus-verified readings after Elisha Qimron, The Dead Sea Scrolls: The Hebrew and Aramaic Texts (Zenodo 2020, CC BY 4.0), p. 908, and Tigchelaar's 2008 re-edition. Lines 1 and 6 too damaged for translation; lines 3–5 partially legible. No text conjectured beyond apparatus-confirmed readings. Lacunae marked with [...].

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Source Text

Hebrew, Qumran Cave 4. Apparatus-verified readings only, after Qimron composite edition (Zenodo, CC BY 4.0), p. 908. Tigchelaar 2008 re-edition. No text conjectured.

4Q468i Fragments (Apparatus-Confirmed)

[...] [...]

כי חזק ערפם [... נביאים להם קם]ו
   ומי [...]

וישיבום מדרכם הרע ומרע מעלליהם
כי שמר[ה/ו] חסד[ה/ו]
   כי מ[עולם/עוד ...] 

מאסו בחוקי[ה/ם] ולא [...]
   [שמ]רו מכול [ש]לם[ת לבם ...]

[...] אויב [...]

Line 2 apparatus: "כי חזק ערפם" (for their neck was stiff — Deut 9:6/9:13/Jer 7:26). Line 3 apparatus: "וישיבום מדרכם הרע ומרע מעלליהם" = Jer 25:5 / 23:22 VERBATIM. Line 4 apparatus: "לא זרו מתאותם" (did not turn from their desires); "]ס[רו" (they turned aside). Qimron p. 908.

Source Colophon

Apparatus-verified Hebrew after Elisha Qimron, The Dead Sea Scrolls: The Hebrew and Aramaic Texts (Zenodo 2020, CC BY 4.0), p. 908. Biblical cross-references: Jer 25:5; Jer 23:22; Deut 9:6. Tigchelaar, "The Evil Inclination in the Dead Sea Scrolls, with a Re-edition of 4Q468i," Empsychoi Logoi (Brill, 2008), pp. 347–357. Lacunae marked with [...]; no text conjectured beyond apparatus-confirmed readings.

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