They praised their God with all their mouths — for your compassions are great.

(Lines 1–3 preserve only isolated letters and traces. No continuous translation is possible.)

[...] they ate [...]

And they praised their God with all their mouths [...] for your compassions are great, and from the multitude of guilt [...]

They waited, saying: [...] blow upon blow, and alas! [...]

[...from] the nations [...] they gathered [...]

(Lines 9–10 too fragmentary.)

Colophon

Source: 4Q481c, Caves of Qumran (Cave 4), first century BCE. Published in Qimron, The Dead Sea Scrolls: The Hebrew Writings, Vol. 3 (Yad Ben-Zvi, 2015). Primary publication: DJD XXXVI (Tov et al., Oxford University Press, 2000).

Tradition: Judean sectarian literature. 4Q481c is a Cave 4 Hebrew liturgical composition, classified among the miscellaneous texts from Qumran. Five lines yield readable content. The recoverable text moves in three beats: communal praise ("they praised their God with all their mouths"), penitential formula ("for your compassions are great, and from the multitude of guilt"), and a lament or oracle of suffering ("blow upon blow, and alas"). The final readable line introduces an eschatological gathering from the nations — a motif found throughout the Dead Sea Scrolls, from the War Scroll's final battle to the eschatological sections of the Damascus Document.

The phrase "for your compassions are great" (ki rabbim raḥamekha) echoes Psalm 51:1 ("according to your great compassion") and Daniel 9:18 ("for we do not present our supplications before you because of our righteousness, but because of your great mercy"). The praise formula "they praised their God with all their mouths" (hillelu... bekhal piyhem) is a liturgical refrain attested in Psalm 150 and communal hymn traditions. The combination of praise with penitential confession — praising God while acknowledging the weight of sin — is characteristic of the Hodayot tradition (1QHa) and connects this fragment to the community's liturgical life.

"Blow upon blow" (makkah al makkah) appears in prophetic contexts of cascading disaster (Ezekiel 7:26: "disaster upon disaster shall come"), suggesting the fragment may include a lament section between the confession and the eschatological hope.

Note on lacunae: Only five of ten lines yield continuous readable text. Square brackets mark boundaries of legible content. No words or letters have been restored beyond what the transcription supports.

Translation: New Tianmu Anglican Church, 2026 (from Hebrew transcription in Qimron composite edition, decoded via Miqdas font mapping). This translation is independent of existing English renderings.

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