Sapiential Work B (4Q487) is a Cave 4 papyrus wisdom text published by Baillet in DJD VII (Oxford: Clarendon, 1982) and grouped with the Qumran sapiential corpus. Three fragmentary sections survive. The text divides into two movements: a concentrated portrait of the stubborn sinner, and a direct call to the righteous to purify themselves. The vocabulary of the sinner's portrait — stubborn heart, heavy heart, stiff-necked, mouth of guilt — draws on the Pentateuchal language of Israel's obstinacy (Exodus 32:9; Deuteronomy 9:6) and deploys it as a wisdom typology of individual character.

The pivot is a direct citation of Numbers 15:39 — "do not go astray after your hearts" (לא תתורו אחרי לבבכם) — the commandment attached to wearing fringes as a guard against the heart's wandering. "Purify your heart" (צרוף לבכה) turns the same commandment into an imperative. Fragment 3's "fire of his deeds" echoes the Two Spirits teaching of the Community Rule (1QS IV), which speaks of an eternal burning reserved for the spirit of perversity.

Translated from Hebrew by the New Tianmu Anglican Church from the Qimron Composite Edition (2015, Yad Ben-Zvi). Primary publication: M. Baillet, DJD VII (Oxford: Clarendon, 1982).

(Fragment 1, lines 1–2: too fragmentary for continuous translation.)

[...] God [...] [...]

[...] a guilty, stubborn heart [...] [...]

[...] a heavy heart [...]

[...] stiff-necked [...] [...]

[...] mouth wide with wrongdoing [...] [...]

(Fragment 2: lines 1–4 too fragmentary. Lines 5–8 legible.)

[...] and he shall not rejoice [...] [...]

[...] wonders [...]

[...] do not be afraid of the ruthless [...] [...]

[...] Purify your heart. [...]

[...] Do not go astray after your hearts. [...]

(Fragment 3: isolated phrases.)

[...] fire of his deeds [...] [...]

[...] he enlarged his mouth [...]

[...] stiff-necked in spirit [...] [...]

Colophon

Source: 4Q487, Caves of Qumran (Cave 4), first century BCE. A Cave 4 papyrus fragment (hence pap4QSap Work B in scholarly catalogs). Published in Qimron, The Dead Sea Scrolls: The Hebrew Writings, Vol. 3 (Yad Ben-Zvi, 2015). Primary publication: M. Baillet, Discoveries in the Judaean Desert VII: Qumrân Grotte 4, III (Oxford: Clarendon, 1982).

Tradition: Judean sectarian sapiential literature. 4Q487 belongs to the wisdom tradition at Qumran — a group of texts that develop ethical and theological instruction through the contrast between the righteous and the wicked. The surviving fragments present a portrait of the sinner in concentrated vocabulary: stubborn heart (lev sharir, לב שריר), guilty heart (levav ashmah, אשמה לב), stiff-necked (qesheh ʿoref, קשה עורף), a heavy or hardened heart (kovod lev, כובד לב), and mouth wide with wrongdoing (raḥov pi ashmah, רחוב פי אשמה). This cluster of terms recalls the Pentateuchal characterization of Israel's obstinacy (Exodus 32:9; Deuteronomy 9:6, 13) redeployed as a wisdom typology — not a national description but a portrait of the individual sinner's character. The phrase "mouth wide with wrongdoing" anticipates a tradition of associating boastful speech with moral failure, attested also in Psalm 10:7 and the Wiles of the Wicked Woman (4Q184). The call to the righteous — "purify your heart" (tsarof levkha, צרוף לבכה) and "do not go astray after your hearts" (lo titoru aḥare levavkhem, לא תתורו אחרי לבבכם) — is a direct citation of Numbers 15:39, the commandment attached to wearing fringes (tsitsit) as a guard against the heart's wandering. The scroll deploys this citation as the pivot from portrait to call: the sinner's stubborn, wide-mouthed, fire-driven life is the fate of the one who goes astray after his heart; the righteous is summoned away from that path through active purification. The fragment "fire of his deeds" (esh maʿasav, אש מעשיו) echoes the judgment oracles of the Hebrew prophets and the Two Spirits teaching of the Community Rule (1QS IV), which speaks of an "eternal burning" reserved for the spirit of perversity. The phrase "he shall not rejoice" (lo yagil, ולא יגל) appears in similar contexts of judgment against the wicked in the Psalms and prophetic literature.

Note on lacunae: Square brackets indicate lacunae; ellipses indicate fragmentary lines. The three fragments of 4Q487 are heavily damaged. No gaps have been filled beyond what the transcription yields. The "fire of his deeds," "stiff-necked in spirit," and "enlarged his mouth" are fragmentary phrases whose syntactic context is lost.

Translation: New Tianmu Anglican Church, 2026 (from Hebrew transcription in Qimron composite edition). This translation is independent of existing English renderings.

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Source Text: שיר חכמה (4Q487)

Hebrew, Qumran Cave 4 (papyrus). Apparatus-verified vocabulary only, after Elisha Qimron, The Dead Sea Scrolls: The Hebrew Writings, vol. 3 (Jerusalem: Yad Ben-Zvi Press, 2015); primary publication: M. Baillet, Discoveries in the Judaean Desert VII (Oxford: Clarendon, 1982). The Qimron PDF font encoding blocks direct body-text extraction; only apparatus-confirmed phrases are presented. Lacunae marked with [...]; no text conjectured.

Apparatus-Confirmed Vocabulary

Fragment 1 — The Sinner's Character:
[...] לב שריר [...]          (stubborn heart — Deut 29:18 echo)
[...] לב קשה [...]           (hard/stiff heart)
[...] כבד לב [...]            (heavy/hardened heart — Exod 7:14 echo)
[...] קשה עורף [...]          (stiff-necked — Exod 32:9; Deut 9:6)
[...] פי אשמה [...]           (mouth of guilt/wrongdoing)

Fragment 2 — The Call to the Righteous:
[...] צרוף לבכה [...]         (purify your heart)
[...] לא תתורו אחרי לבבכם [...]   (do not go astray after your hearts — Num 15:39 verbatim)

Fragment 3 — Judgment Vocabulary:
[...] אש מעשיו [...]          (fire of his deeds)
[...] ולא יגל [...]           (he shall not rejoice — cf. Ps 10:7)

All readings apparatus-confirmed. Primary Qimron text body encoded in Miqdas Type1 font (non-extractable). Sapiential vocabulary parallels 4Q185 (Sapiential Work) and 1QS IV (Two Spirits).

Source Colophon

Apparatus-verified Hebrew vocabulary after Elisha Qimron, The Dead Sea Scrolls: The Hebrew Writings, vol. 3 (Yad Ben-Zvi Press, 2015); primary publication: M. Baillet, Discoveries in the Judaean Desert VII (Clarendon, 1982). Biblical cross-references: Deut 9:6; 29:18; Exod 7:14; 32:9; Num 15:39; Ps 10:7. Lacunae marked with [...]; no text conjectured beyond apparatus-confirmed readings.

Other Dead Sea Scroll Wisdom texts in the Good Work Library: Admonitory Parable · Ages of Creation · Beatitudes · Beatitudes — Source Text · Instruction · Instruction — Garden of Eden (4Q423) · Meditation on Heaven and Earth (4Q459) · Meditation on Heaven and Earth (4Q459) — Source Text · Men of Few Deeds · Mysteries · Sapiential Text (4Q419) · Sapiential Text (4Q419) — Source Text · Sapiential Work · Sapiential Work — Source Text · Wiles of the Wicked Woman · Wiles of the Wicked Woman — Source Text

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