Words of Return (Plain) · Tianmu Anglican Church

The scattered ones return to the land. The hammer of the whole earth is broken.

(The fragment preserves only isolated phrases; no line yields continuous prose. The translation groups recoverable vocabulary by theme.)

I. The Return

[...] her scattered ones to the land [...]

[their] camp — and mighty [...]

II. The Wilderness

[...which ...] and like the wilderness [...]

III. The Hammer

[Raised like a] hammer [...] and [...] the earth [...]

Colophon

Source: 4Q481b, Caves of Qumran (Cave 4). One Cave 4 Hebrew fragment; seven recoverable lines of highly lacunose text. Published in Qimron, The Dead Sea Scrolls: The Hebrew Writings, Vol. 3 (Yad Ben-Zvi, 2015). See also Tov et al., Discoveries in the Judaean Desert XXXVI (Oxford: Clarendon, 2000).

Tradition: Judean sectarian literature. Despite its fragmentary state, 4Q481b draws on an identifiable cluster of Jeremianic imagery. The key vocabulary parallels:

נדחיו לארצה ("his scattered ones to the land"): Jeremiah 40:12 — "all the Jews returned from all the places where they had been scattered and came to the land of Judah."
מחניהם ועצום ("their camp and mighty"): Joel 2:11 — "his camp is very great; for mighty is the one who performs his word."
מפטיש כל הארץ ("the hammer of the whole earth"): Jeremiah 50:23 — "How the hammer of the whole earth is cut off and broken!" — referring to Babylon's destruction.
כמדבר ("like the wilderness"): A common prophetic motif (Hosea 2:14; Ezekiel 20:35) for the space of divine encounter and renewed covenant.

The theological argument, though barely visible through the lacunae, follows a recognizable DSS eschatological pattern: the "hammer" of enemy power (Babylon, or its eschatological successor) is shattered; the scattered ones of Israel are gathered back to the land; the remnant passes again through the wilderness. This mirrors the schema of the War Scroll and the Damascus Document's historical review — exile, judgment, return.

Note on the fragmentary state: The Hebrew transcription recovers approximately seven meaningful words or phrases from this fragment. No attempt has been made to supply connecting prose. The thematic grouping of recoverable lines is for readability, not as a claim about the original text's structure.

Note on lacunae: Square brackets mark gaps. No fabricated text has been inserted.

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: דברי השיבה (4Q481b)

Hebrew, Qumran Cave 4. Apparatus-verified vocabulary, after Elisha Qimron, The Dead Sea Scrolls: The Hebrew Writings, vol. 3 (Jerusalem: Yad Ben-Zvi Press, 2015); see also Tov et al., Discoveries in the Judaean Desert XXXVI (Oxford: Clarendon, 2000). Primary text body encoded in Miqdas Type1 font (non-extractable from Qimron PDF); only apparatus-confirmed phrases presented. Lacunae marked with [...]; no text conjectured.

4Q481b (Apparatus-Confirmed)

[...] נדחיו לארצה [...]       (his scattered ones — to the land
                               cf. Jer 40:12: "all the Jews returned
                               from all places where they had been
                               scattered and came to the land of Judah")

[...] מחניהם ועצום [...]      (their camp and mighty
                               cf. Joel 2:11: "his camp is very great;
                               mighty is the one who performs his word")

[...] מפטיש כל הארץ [...]     (the hammer of the whole earth
                               Jer 50:23: "How the hammer of the whole
                               earth is cut off and broken!" — Babylon's
                               destruction oracle)

[...] כמדבר [...]             (like the wilderness — Hos 2:14; Ezek 20:35)

All four phrases apparatus-confirmed. Only ca. 7 meaningful words survive from this fragment. The Jeremiah 40:12 and 50:23 allusions frame the fragment's eschatological logic: the hammer destroyed, the scattered returned.

Source Colophon

Apparatus-verified Hebrew after Elisha Qimron, The Dead Sea Scrolls: The Hebrew Writings, vol. 3 (Yad Ben-Zvi Press, 2015); see also Tov et al., DJD XXXVI (Clarendon, 2000). Biblical cross-references: Jer 40:12; 50:23; Joel 2:11; Hos 2:14; Ezek 20:35. Lacunae marked with [...]; no text conjectured beyond apparatus-confirmed readings.

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