Blessed is Melchizedek, King of Righteousness. Cursed is Melki-resha, King of Wickedness. The community said both together, in the same ceremony, on the same day.
The Curses of Melki-resha (4Q280) is a Cave 4 Hebrew manuscript published by Bilhah Nitzan in Qumran Cave 4, VI: Poetical and Liturgical Texts, Part 1 (DJD XXIX; Oxford: Clarendon, 1999). Two fragments survive from what was likely a longer liturgical composition.
The text is the cursing counterpart to the Berakhot (4Q286–290), the Qumran blessing liturgy. The Berakhot blesses God, blesses the congregation of the elect, and pronounces curses on Belial and the spirits of his lot. The Curses of Melki-resha focuses that condemnation on a single figure: "Melki-resha" (מלכי רשע), "King of Wickedness" — the dark mirror to Melchizedek (מלכי צדק), "King of Righteousness." In the Community Rule, column 2, the ceremony is described: the Levites curse all the men of the lot of Belial, and the congregation responds "Amen, amen." This text is that curse made explicit.
Melki-resha is the cosmic adversary of the sectarian worldview — the ruler of the dominion of darkness who corresponds to the angelic Prince of Light. He appears briefly in the 11QMelchizedek scroll as Melchizedek's opponent, and here his condemnation is spoken aloud as liturgy. The ceremony was not passive theology. The community gathered, heard the list of curses, and answered. They rejected the darkness by name.
The text preserved in Fragment 1 includes the core curse formula; Fragment 2 echoes it in shorter form. The curse structure — isolation from the sons of light, a declaration of cursedness, a denial of mercy, a pronouncement of darkness, and a final invocation of Moses as the standard of covenant faithfulness — follows the pattern of the ancient covenant curse traditions known from Deuteronomy 27–28.
Fragment 1, Column i — The Curse
[And God will separate him] from all the sons of [light...]
[...] his back, and they continued and said again:
Cursed are you, Melki-resha, in all the thoughts of [your] guilty inclination [...].
May God [not] have mercy on you when you call [upon him; let] his wrath [rise] against you.
[...] for you, and nothing shall be yours — and against your rage [...] darkness for you [...].
Cursed are you, and there is no remnant, and there is no escape for you; and you are condemned [...] thoughts of your wickedness [...].
[The days of] your wrath shall be reckoned in [the] heart [...] to scheme against the Covenant [...] and against Moses by the hand [of God...].
Fragment 2 — The Echo
[...] against you.
[...] for your rising.
[...] held by the fathers [...].
[...] Moses by [God's] hand.
Colophon
Translated from the Hebrew transcription of 4Q280 as published in DJD XXIX (Nitzan, 1999) and the Qimron composite edition. The Hebrew text in the Qimron PDF exhibits font-encoding artifacts that obscure individual letters; the translation draws on the DJD XXIX transcription confirmed against identifiable Hebrew visible in the composite edition, including the directly legible phrase "מלכי רשע" (Melki-resha). Translated into English by the New Tianmu Anglican Church, March 2026. Scribal work: Tulku (DSS lineage, session 2026-03-21).
🌲
Source Text — 4Q280
The Hebrew transcription of 4Q280. Fragment 1 contains the main curse formula; Fragment 2 preserves echo phrases. Lacunae marked with [...]; reconstructions in brackets.
Fragment 1, Column i
[...ויבדילהו אל מכל בני ה]אור [...]
[...] ב[הסוגו] מאחריו והוסיפו עוד ויאמרו ארו[ר]
ארור אתה מלכי רשע בכל מחשבות [...]יצר אשמה [...]
[לא] יחוכה אל ב[עת קרא]תך [...] ישא אפ[ו]
[...] לך ולא יהיה לך ולהעזמה [...] לך חשך [...]
ארור אתה ואין שרית ואין מפלאה לך ואתה זועם [...] מחשבות רשעתך [...]
[...] ימי נחמתך ב[לבב ...] לזום על ברית [...] ובמשה ביד [האל...]
Fragment 2
[...] לך להעזמה
[...] לתקומתך
[...] אחוזי אבות [...]
[...] משה ביד [...]
Source Colophon
Hebrew source text from the editio princeps: Nitzan, Bilhah. Qumran Cave 4, VI: Poetical and Liturgical Texts, Part 1. DJD XXIX. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1999. Supplemented by Qimron, Elisha. The Dead Sea Scrolls: The Hebrew and Aramaic Texts. Jerusalem: Yad Ben-Zvi Press, 2010. Brackets indicate lacunae and scholarly reconstructions.
🌲