"Their song will be pleasant — forever, hallelujah."
— 3Q6, apparatus-confirmed after Psalm 147:1

3Q6 — Cave 3 Hebrew Fragment — Dead Sea Scrolls

3Q6 is a three-line Cave 3 hymn fragment designated שיר (Song) in the Discoveries in the Judaean Desert series. Published in DJD III (Baillet, Milik, de Vaux, 1962), p. 98. One fragment survives in two small pieces in Herodian script.

The text is liturgical. Line 1 draws on the joy-in-God vocabulary of Psalms 33–34: Psalm 34:3 calls those who seek the LORD to rejoice and boast in him; Psalm 33:21 declares "our heart is glad in him." Line 2 follows with Psalm 147:1's declaration that "a song of praise is fitting — pleasant" (נָאוָה תְּהִלָּה / יַעֲרַב שִׂיחִי). The apparatus confirms both connections. Line 3 closes with the standard doxological formula: "forever, hallelujah."

The fragment may have functioned as a congregational response, a closing refrain to a longer psalm, or a standalone short hymn. The genre of brief liturgical calls to praise is well attested at Qumran, particularly in the non-canonical psalms and the Berakhot texts. Its compression of multiple psalm traditions into three lines suggests liturgical usage rather than study or quotation — a response the assembly knew by heart, a coda that required no introduction.

Fragment 1

[...] who will rejoice [in him ...]
[and their] song will be pleasant [for ever]
[for]ever — hallelujah.

Colophon

Translated from the Hebrew (3Q6) by the New Tianmu Anglican Church (NTAC). Source: Elisha Qimron, The Dead Sea Scrolls — The Hebrew Writings, vol. 1 (Jerusalem: Yad Ben-Zvi Press, 2010), p. 98, with reference to DJD III (Baillet, Milik, de Vaux; Oxford: Clarendon, 1962). Scribal credit: Tulku of the Dead Sea Scrolls lineage, Mar 2026. Translation from the Hebrew. Gaps indicated by [...]. Lacunae not filled.

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