The Yahad as the Locus of Divine Presence: On 4QFlorilegium's Divinatory Hermeneutics

The current paper offers a fresh analysis of the hermeneutics of 4Q174 (Florilegium). There is no satisfactory consensus on the organizing principle that holds the document together as a coherent whole, or whether there is an organizing principle. The oft-cited view that the theme is eschatology or 'the latter days' (אחרית הימים) is not satisfactory, for it is too broad to have interpretive value. A reevaluation of 4QFlor is needed. Beginning with the initial unit of 4QFlor I 1-13, I make the case that the polemical interpretive enterprise revolves around the authenticating presence of God in the yahad in the unfolding eschatological drama, and that the creative contribution of 4QFlor is its defense of the yahad as the locus of divine presence. 4QFlor stems from reflection on the yahad’s typologically-exilic experience and gives witness to the yahad’s polemic against the Jerusalem temple cult. The interpretive approach is functionally divinatory and formally deictic.