"Your vineyard, and the channels of your glory."
— 4Q500, Fragment 1

4Q500 — Cave 4, Qumran

The Hymn of the Lord's Vineyard (4Q500) is a single fragmentary leaf from Qumran Cave 4, written in Hebrew. Six lines survive in varying degrees; three yield translatable text. The hymn is addressed to God and concerns his vineyard — a rich Second Temple symbol that fuses the imagery of Isaiah 5:1–7 (the Song of the Vineyard, in which Israel is God's vineyard that has failed him) with the Temple itself as God's planted garden and the source of his glory.

The scholar J.M. Baumgarten, who first published a detailed study of this fragment, identified the phrase gate of the height of the holy place (לשער מרום הקודש) as a reference to the Temple sanctuary — the vineyard as a metaphor for the holy precinct. The phrase channels of your glory (ופלגי כבודכה) extends the image: just as an irrigated garden has channels of water, so the sanctuary has channels of divine glory flowing through it. And your delights (שעשועיכה) recalls Proverbs 8:31, where Wisdom delights in the inhabited world — here, God's own delight in his sanctuary.

The text is too damaged for a complete translation. Lines 1–2 are largely illegible; the intelligible content is in lines 3–5. This translation offers only what the text gives. The lacunae are marked.

Fragment 1

[...] for the gate of the height of the Holy [Place] [...]

[...] your vineyard, and the channels of your glory [...]

[...] your delights [...]

[...] your [...]

Colophon

Text: Hymn of the Lord's Vineyard (4Q500)
Source: Qumran Cave 4
Language: Hebrew
Translation: New Tianmu Anglican Church, 2026
Translated from: Hebrew transcription of Elisha Qimron, The Qumran Texts — Composite Edition (Zenodo, CC BY 4.0, 2020), decoded from Miqdas Type1 font
Register: Gospel (plain, direct, warm)

This is a Good Works Translation. The English was translated directly from the Hebrew source text. The fragment is severely damaged; only three lines yield translatable content. The imagery of the vineyard-as-Temple draws on Isaiah 5:1–7 and Psalm 80. The key phrase "gate of the height of the Holy Place" (לשער מרום הקודש) identifies the sanctuary as the setting. "Channels of your glory" (ופלגי כבודכה) uses irrigation imagery for divine radiance. Editio princeps: Maurice Baillet, Qumrân grotte 4: III, DJD VII (Oxford: Clarendon, 1982). Principal study: J.M. Baumgarten, "4Q500 and the Ancient Conception of the Lord's Vineyard," JJS 40 (1989), pp. 1–6.

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Source Text: 4Q500 — שיר כרם ה'

Hebrew transcription after Elisha Qimron, The Qumran Texts — Composite Edition (Zenodo, CC BY 4.0, 2020). Decoded from Miqdas Type1 font (old Mac Hebrew visual encoding); per-word byte-reversal applied to convert visual to logical order. All lacunae marked [...]. Lines 1–2 and 6 are too fragmentary for transcription.

Line 3: [...] לשער מרום הקודש [...]
Line 4: [...] מטעכה ופלגי כבודכה [...]
Line 5: [...] שעשועיכה [...]
Line 6: [...] מכה [...]

Source Colophon

4Q500 (4QHymn of the Vineyard). Cave 4, Qumran. Hebrew. One fragment. Published: Maurice Baillet, Qumrân grotte 4: III (4Q482–4Q520), DJD VII (Oxford: Clarendon, 1982). Transcription after Elisha Qimron, The Qumran Texts — Composite Edition (Zenodo, CC BY 4.0, 2020). Hebrew decoded from Miqdas Type1 custom font encoding using reverse-engineered Mac Hebrew character map; per-word byte-reversal converts visual to logical order. Key readings confirmed against NewPeninimMT Unicode text in the same document. All lacunae marked [...].

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