And all the men of the city gathered against the house.
"Bring her out."
And he said to them: "My brothers, do not act wickedly."
(One fragment from a single Cave 4 Aramaic manuscript — six lines, heavily lacunose. The surviving vocabulary places a named figure of priestly lineage at the center of a mob confrontation. The text's relationship to the LXX Daniel-Susanna narrative (Daniel 13) is uncertain; Milik proposed a direct connection, while Beyer treated it as a related but independent apocryphal court narrative.)
Fragment 1
[...] understanding [...]
[...]t]hen an old man [...].
The son of Jonathan, the son of Jeshua, the son of Ishmael, the son of [...]
and all the men of the city gathered against the house —
[...] and they said to him: "Bring her out!"
And he sa[id] to them: "My brothers, do not act wickedly.
Beh[old ..."].
[...] ... [...].
Colophon
Text: 4Q551 (4QDaniel-Suzanna? ar, Aramaic), Cave 4. PAM 43.594; ROC 158. Published in J.T. Milik, "Daniel et Susanne à Qumrân?", in M. Carrez et al. (eds.), De la Tôrah au Messie (Paris: Desclée, 1981) pp. 337–359; K. Beyer, ATTM (1984), pp. 224–225. Transcription consulted in García Martínez and Tigchelaar, The Dead Sea Scrolls Study Edition (Brill, 1997–1999), vol. 2, pp. 1126–1127.
The six surviving lines of 4Q551 crystallize a scene of confrontation: a mob assembles against a house, demands that someone be brought out (הנפק, Haphel imperative of נפק — the same imperative used in Genesis 19:5 when the men of Sodom demand Lot bring out his visitors), and a named protagonist rebukes them: "my brothers, do not act wickedly" (אחי אל תבאשו — again echoing Genesis 19:7, Lot's words to the same mob). The parallelism with the Sodom narrative is exact and almost certainly deliberate.
The Susanna connection (proposed by Milik) rests on the same mob structure: in the LXX Daniel 13, the two elders summon Susanna before the assembly, demand that she be unveiled (13:32), and pronounce false judgment. The "bring out" command and the civic assembly "against the house" match 4Q551's Fragment 1, lines 4–5. However, the named protagonist in 4Q551 — the son of Jonathan, the son of Jeshua, the son of Ishmael — does not appear in the Susanna narrative; that figure is Susanna's husband Joakim and her defender Daniel. Beyer concluded that 4Q551 represents a distinct but related apocryphal tradition, possibly a Hasmonean-era court narrative that drew on the same thematic vocabulary as both Genesis 19 and the Susanna legend.
The genealogy — son of Jonathan, son of Jeshua, son of Ishmael — places the protagonist in a chain of specifically Levitical or priestly names. Jeshua is the post-exilic High Priestly name (Ezra 2:2; Neh 7:7); Jonathan appears in several Hasmonean contexts. This suggests the apocryphal story may have been set in a Diaspora or Hasmonean court, presenting a priestly-lineage figure as the righteous man under communal pressure.
Fragment 1, line 1 preserves בינתא — "understanding, discernment" (cognate with Hebrew בינה). Line 2, "then an old man," may introduce the antagonist or judge of the scene. Too lacunose for certain identification.
Translated from Aramaic by the New Tianmu Anglican Church, 2026.
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Source Text
4Q551 (4QDanSuz? ar) — Cave 4, PAM 43.594, ROC 158.
1. [... ]בינתא[...]
2. [... א]דין גבר שב[...]
3. [... ]בר יהונתן בר ישוע בר ישמעאל בר[...]
4. ויתכנשון כל אנש קרתא על ביתא[...]
5. [... ]וימרון לה הנפק[...] ]וימ[ר] להון אחי אל תבאשו ה]א ...[
6. [...]...[...]
Aramaic transcription from The Dead Sea Scrolls Study Edition, vol. 2 (García Martínez & Tigchelaar, Brill, 1998). Lacunae marked [...]. Text preserved in the Israel Antiquities Authority Dead Sea Scrolls Collections.
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