Qumran Beatitudes (4Q525)
Dead Sea Scrolls, Cave 4
Blessed-sayings were at home in Jewish wisdom long before Matthew 5. 4Q525 blesses the one who seeks Wisdom and refuses slander. Set beside Jesus’ Beatitudes, you can hear both kinship and a shift: Jesus names the poor, the meek, and the peacemakers.
4Q525
Blessed is the one who speaks truth with a pure heart and does not slander with the tongue. Blessed is the one who seeks Wisdom and walks in the law of the Most High.
Related readings
Community Rule 1QS 1
The Instructor is to teach all the children of light to love all the children of light, each according to his lot in God’s design, and to hate every way of darkness. They are to seek God with a whole heart and a whole soul, and to do what is good and upright before him.
4Q525 Beatitudes
Blessed is the one who speaks truth with a pure heart and does not slander with the tongue. Blessed are those who hold to her ways and do not hold to the ways of injustice. Blessed is the one who seeks Wisdom and walks in the law of the Most High.
Thanksgiving Hymns 1QH
I thank you, O Lord, for you have placed me in the bundle of the living, and you have sheltered me from all the snares of the pit. You have given me insight, and your mercy is toward me without end.