הערה על מגילה 448 ממערה 4 של קומראן

The Qumran text 4Q448, which mentions 'King Jonathan' ,i.e., Alexander Jannaeus, has been understood as petitioning God to bless this Hasmonean king - a surprise in the light of other texts which have led scholars to believe that the Qumran sect in fact detested him. However, examination of four specific locutions used in this document, and their usage in the Bible, leads us to offer a new interpretation of the text. Our conclusion is that the text indeed concurs with the corpus of sectarian texts, and that it in fact asks God to move against Jannaeus.