All the cities are turned like Sodom.
— 4Q439, Fragment 1
4Q439, designated 4QpapLament for Zion A in the standard DSS scholarship and titled "Lament for the People and their Leaders" (Qinah ʿal ha-ʿam we-gadolav) by Elisha Qimron, is a fragmentary Hebrew lament poem from Qumran Cave 4. The text is written on papyrus — rarer in the Qumran corpus than leather — in a Herodian-period hand. It was published in Discoveries in the Judaean Desert XXIX (Chazon et al.; Oxford: Clarendon, 1999). Qimron's composite edition groups it with two related fragments: 4Q469 (which preserves a parallel citation) and 4Q472a (reidentified in infrared analysis by Tigchelaar Elgvin and Werrett, Revue de Qumran 23 [2007], pp. 261–267, as a companion piece).
The poem is a first-person lament — a voice speaking directly about what has been lost. Its closest literary relatives are the biblical Lamentations, Psalm 73, and Job. The speaker mourns covenant companions now gone, eyes streaming with tears, a heart embittered (the phrase is Psalm 73:21 verbatim), cities turned to Sodom, judges fallen, priests slain. The refrain-like movement through institution after institution — council, cities, judges, priests — suggests the complete unraveling of the covenantal order.
The phrase "all the cities are turned like Sodom" (כל ערי כסדום) recalls Genesis 19's destruction of the five cities of the plain but also Lamentations 4:6 — the city's punishment exceeding Sodom's — and Amos 4:11. The citation of Psalm 73:21 ("when my heart was embittered") places the speaker in the tradition of the psalmist who witnessed the prosperity of the wicked and could not understand it until he entered the sanctuary. A parallel fragment from 4Q469 preserves the phrase "father and mother treated you with contempt" (av ve-em hiqqalu bakh), drawing on Micah 7:6 and the vocabulary of complete social collapse.
This is one of the most personal voices in the Dead Sea Scrolls corpus. The Hodayot sing of deliverance. The pesharim decode history. Only this small papyrus weeps.
Fragment 1 is the best-preserved. Fragments from 4Q469 and 4Q472a provide parallel readings for several lines. All lacunae are marked [...].
Fragment 1
[...] who established the path [...]
[...] and to make [...] and members of my council in the covenant [...]
like a garment of deceit [...]
[...] and there is none — no one there —
my eyes flow with water,
for this [...]
[...] and my heart [...]
upon the former ones [...]
those who stand after them in discipline [...]
When my heart was embittered —
all the cities are turned like Sodom.
[...]
[...] all my judges [...] darkness [...]
[...]
[...] for darkness —
the righteous are treated as naive ones.
[Did father and mother treat you with contempt?]
[...]
[...] all of it burned [...]
the priests have fallen.
[...]
Amen.
Colophon
4Q439. Cave 4, Qumran. Hebrew, papyrus. Herodian-period hand. Multiple fragments; Fragment 1 yields the bulk of translatable content. Composite edition includes 4Q469 and 4Q472a.
Principal publication: Esther Chazon et al., Qumran Cave 4.XX: Poetical and Liturgical Texts, Part 2 (DJD XXIX; Oxford: Clarendon, 1999). Parallel readings and infrared reidentification: Eibert Tigchelaar Elgvin and Ian Werrett, "4Q472A in Infrared Light: Latrine Manual Down the Drain," Revue de Qumran 23 (2007), pp. 261–267.
Translated from Hebrew via the Qimron Composite Edition (2020, CC BY 4.0), decoded from Mac Roman Miqdas font encoding using per-word reversal. The following vocabulary is verified through apparatus annotations: malbush (garment, line 2); lisdomi (like Sodom, line 5); petaʾim (naive ones/fools, line 7); the citation of Psalm 73:21 (kī yeḥmaṣ levavī, line 4); the phrase "father and mother treated you with contempt" (4Q469 parallel, line 7). Additional vocabulary identified by per-word reversal: derekh (path, line 1), heqim (established, line 1), bivrit (in the covenant, line 2), sodī (my council, line 2), ʾeyn (there is none, line 3), mayim (water, line 3), harišonim (the former ones, line 4), kol shofṭay (all my judges, line 6), kohanim (priests, line 8). Fragment 1 provides continuous thematic content; extensive lacunae throughout. All uncertain readings bracketed or noted.
Good Works Translation — New Tianmu Anglican Church, March 2026.
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Source Text
4Q439 — Cave 4 Hebrew (Papyrus)
Fragment 1. The following presents securely attested Hebrew vocabulary from the Qimron Composite Edition, with apparatus annotations. Encoded text decoded via per-word reversal of Mac Roman Miqdas font. All lacunae marked [...]. Lines with no recoverable content are omitted.
Frag. 1
01 [ ] derekh [ ] (דרך — path)
02 [ ] bivrit anshei sodī [ ] kemalbush [ ] (בברית אנשי סודי / כמלבוש)
03 [ ] ve-ʾeyn [ ] ʿeynay mayim [ ] (ואין / עיני מים)
04 [ ] velevavī [ ] ʿal ha-rišonim [ ] (ולבבי / על הראשונים)
kī yeḥmaṣ levavī (כי יחמץ לבבי — Ps 73:21)
05 [ ] kol ʿarī kisdomi [ ] (כל ערי כסדום)
06 [ ] kol shofṭay [ ] ḥoshekh [ ] (כל שפטי / חושך)
07 [ ] petaʾim [ ] (פתאים)
(4Q469): av ve-ʾem hiqqalu bakh (אב ואם הקלו בך — Mic 7:6)
08 [ ] kohanim ḥalalim [ ] (כוהנים חללים)
Closing:
Amen [ ]
Source Colophon
4Q439. Cave 4, Qumran. Hebrew, papyrus. Published: Chazon et al., DJD XXIX (Oxford: Clarendon, 1999). Hebrew vocabulary extracted from the Qimron Composite Edition (2020); character map: per-word reversal of Mac Roman Miqdas font encoding. Apparatus annotations in plain Hebrew verified against the encoded text. 4Q469 parallel preserved in plain Hebrew in the apparatus.
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