New Light on the Ten Jubilees of 11QMelchizedek (11Q13)

This note suggests a new reading and reconstruction of the oft-cited 11QMelchizedek 2:6–8. This passage is a part of the “pesher for the last days” expounding on Lev 25:13 and Deut 15:2. Its vision of future liberation from spiritual captivity to Belial relies on the language and conceptual framework of the Jubilee Year. Moreover, the pesher refers to a temporal scheme of ten Jubilees. The new reading helps clarify the precise timing of the eschatological redemption, “the beginning of the first Jubilee after [the] te[n] Jubilees,” and its implication for the scroll’s scriptural exegesis.