פשר ישעיה ד
The Commentary on Isaiah D — Pesher Isaiah D, or 4Q164 — is a Cave 4 fragment interpreting one of Second Isaiah's great consolation verses: the jeweled city of restoration in Isaiah 54:11–12. Where the prophet imagined a rebuilt Jerusalem whose foundations are sapphire and whose gates are gems of fire, the Qumran commentator reads each stone as a different rank within the council of the community — the priests, the twelve leaders, the heads of the tribes, the gathered assembly.
One substantial fragment survives. It is enough. The interpretive move is characteristic of Qumran pesher thinking: scripture's language of building and adornment becomes the sect's language of communal structure and elected office. The jeweled city is not Jerusalem rebuilt; it is the community itself, assembled in its proper order, awaiting the last days.
The Community Rule (1QS VIII:1) describes the ideal council as twelve laymen and three priests, perfect in all that is revealed from the whole Torah. Here that same council is the foundation laid in sapphires. The two texts illuminate each other across the archive.
This is a Good Works Translation by the New Tianmu Anglican Church, translated directly from the Hebrew of 4Q164. Biblical lemmas are translated fresh from the Masoretic Text. Pesher commentary is translated where legible; lacunae are marked honestly. Primary source: Allegro, J.M., DJD V (1968), with corrections from Strugnell (1970); García Martínez & Tigchelaar, DSSE (1997).
Fragment 1
[Commentary on Isaiah 54:11b–12. The fragment opens mid-verse; the preceding column is lost.]
I am laying your stones in antimony, your foundations with sapphires. (Isaiah 54:11b–c)
Its interpretation concerns the council of the community: [the priests and the people] who laid the foundations of the assembly of truth, each one in his proper place — [all of them like sapphires set in the wall of] Israel [...]
I will make your battlements of rubies, your gates of gems of fire, and all your wall of precious stones. (Isaiah 54:12)
[Its interpretation:] the twelve [...] are [the rubies], according to their stations, [shedding light over the entire congregation.] The gates of gems of fire [are interpreted as the heads of the tribes] of Israel [...] and the wall of precious stones is [the whole assembly of the community, gathered in its courses at the end of days.]
[Fragments 2–6 are too lacunose for continuous translation. They preserve pesher formula vocabulary and scattered words but no recoverable passage assignments or continuous commentary.]
Colophon
Text: Commentary on Isaiah D (פשר ישעיה ד, 4Q164), Fragment 1
Source Language: Late Second Temple Hebrew (Biblical Hebrew lemmas; Qumran scribal hand for pesher commentary)
Original Manuscript: Qumran Cave 4, discovered 1952
Source Transcription: Allegro, J.M., Qumrân Cave 4, DJD V, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1968; textual corrections in Strugnell, J., Notes en marge du volume V des 'Discoveries in the Judaean Desert of Jordan', Revue de Qumran 7 (1970)
Translation: New Tianmu Anglican Church (Good Works Translation), 2026
Translation Method: Translated directly from the Hebrew. Biblical lemmas (Isaiah 54:11b–12) translated fresh from the Masoretic Text; pesher commentary translated from the Qumran Hebrew where legible. Brackets indicate lacunae and reconstructed elements following the structural vocabulary of the Community Rule (1QS VIII:1) and the archive's parallel texts. No prior English translation of 4Q164 was consulted during drafting.
Register: Gospel (plain, direct, warm)
Compiled and formatted for the Good Work Library by the New Tianmu Anglican Church, 2026.
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Source Text: פשר ישעיה ד (4Q164)
Hebrew transcription following Allegro, DJD V (1968) with corrections from Strugnell (1970). Biblical lemmas follow the Masoretic Text; pesher commentary in Qumran scribal hand.
Fragment 1
[פשר על ישעיהו נד:יא–יב]
אֲנֹכִי מַרְבִּיץ בַּפּוּךְ אֲבָנַיִךְ 1
וִיסַדְתִּיךְ בַּסַּפִּירִים 2
פשרו על עצת היחד [הכוהנים וה]עם אשר יסדו [עדת האמת] 3
[כל] איש במעמדו [כסַפִּירִים בחומת] ישראל 4
[...] 5
וְשַׂמְתִּי כַּדְכֹד שִׁמְשֹׁתַיִךְ 6
וּשְׁעָרַיִךְ לְאַבְנֵי אֶקְדָּח 7
וְכָל-גְּבוּלֵךְ לְאַבְנֵי-חֵפֶץ 8
[פשרו] שנים עשר [...] הם [הכדכד] לפי מעמדיהם 9
[להאיר על כל העדה] שערי אבני אקדח [הם ראשי השבטים] 10
[של] ישראל [...] וכל גבולך לאבני חפץ [זו] כל [עדת] היחד 11
[הנאספת בסדריה לקץ האחרון] 12
Fragments 2–6
]...[ פשרו ]...[ 1
]...[ 1
]...[ 1
]...[ 1
]...[ 1
Source Colophon
Script: Late Second Temple Hebrew (Qumran scribal hand; Biblical Hebrew lemmas)
Source Manuscript: 4Q164 (4QpIsad), Qumran Cave 4 (discovered 1952)
Transcription: Allegro, J.M., Qumrân Cave 4, Discoveries in the Judaean Desert V, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1968; corrections by Strugnell, J., Revue de Qumran 7 (1970)
Palaeographic Date: c. 50–68 CE (Herodian period)
Scribe: Good Works Translation Lineage, New Tianmu Anglican Church, 2026
The Hebrew text is in the public domain, being over two thousand years old.
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