The Hebrew of 4Q500, line by line as Qimron prints it. The English translation, printed with this same Hebrew, is on the page Hymn of the Lord's Vineyard.
Source Text: ברכה (4Q500)
The Hebrew as printed in Qimron, vol. 3, p. 230. Square brackets enclose gaps and Qimron's restorations. ◦ marks an illegible letter. A dot above a letter (ׄ) marks a damaged letter read with confidence, a small circle above (֯) a doubtful reading, and a bar above (̄) a letter that could also be read as a similar one. Line numbers follow the edition.
קטע 1
1 [ עופ]אׄיכהׄ ו̄נץי̄ ◦[ ]◦[ ]◦[ ]
2 [ י]קב ת֯יׄרושכה [ב]נׄוי באבנׄי֯[ ]
3 [ ] לשער מרום הקודש [ ]
4 [ ]מ֯טעכה ופלגי כבודכה ◦[ ]
5 [ ]◦כׄפׄות שעשועיכה ◦[ ]
6 [ ]ו֯מכה
(שוליים תחתונים)
Source Colophon
Transcribed from the rendered page of the CC BY 4.0 composite edition (Zenodo, 2020) of Elisha Qimron, The Dead Sea Scrolls: The Hebrew Writings, vol. 3 (Jerusalem: Yad Ben-Zvi Press, 2015), p. 230. Qimron's introduction: a single papyrus fragment from the end of the Hasmonean period, written as an address to God in the second person. Interesting expressions and images from the world of farming survive in it, but its subject is obscure. For its content Qimron points to J. M. Baumgarten, "4Q500 and the Ancient Conception of the Lord's Vineyard", JJS 40 (1989), pp. 1–6, and "The Qumran Sabbath Shirot and Rabbinic Merkabah Traditions", RQ 13 (1988), pp. 207–213. First edition: Maurice Baillet, Qumrân Grotte 4.III (4Q482–4Q520), DJD VII (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1982), pp. 78–79.
Qimron's notes, in brief:
- Line 1: Baillet reads [bk]ʾykh ynṣw. Qimron restores [ʿwp]ʾykh, "your branches", while granting that the word is uncertain, and cites Ben-Yehuda's dictionary, vol. 1, pp. 538–539, and 4Q284a fragment 1, line 4 (p. 59 above). nṣy is the plural of niṣṣah, "blossom".
- Line 2: [y]qb tyrwškh is a vat for making new wine.
- Line 5: the first letters of ]◦kpwt are clearer in older photographs.
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