'שירה מגויסת': למקורותיה של מגילת המלחמה ולתולדות השירה העברית בימי בית שני

This study focuses on a poetic paragraph of the War Rule, whose text is duplicated in 1QM, columns 12 and 19, with an additional textual witness: 4Q492 (4QMb). In its present context, the paragraph appears to be a prayer to God, but critical analysis indicates that it actually comprises four different poems, which are discussed in detail in order to clarify various aspects of the poetics of each individual poem. Several considerations suggest that three of the poems were originally secular in nature and were converted into religious poetry only secondarily, as part of their redaction within the framework of the War Rule. At least one of them appears to have originated in the royal propaganda of the Hasmonean court (and this may apply to the other two as well). These conclusions shed new light on the compositional history of the War Rule, the complex redactional processes that underlie its recorded texts, and the literary history of Hebrew poetry of the Second Temple period.