התפילה לשלומו של יונתן המלך, מזמור קנד והפשר לישעיה י'

Since the publication of 4Q448 (Tarbiz, LX [1990-1991], pp. 295-324), some twenty studies concerning this scroll have appeared. The most important is that of A. Lamaire, who identified additional points of contact between the apocryphal Psalm 154 and column A of 4Q448. D.J. Harrington, J. Strugnell, and now Emmanuelle Main (in this issue), have proposed that the phrase עור על be understood as 'rise up against'. We would like to argue that this suggestion is difficult for syntactical reasons, and should be disregarded on the following bases: 1. The author of the prayer for the welfare of King Jonathan used the conjunctive waw in order to connect 'King Jonathan' with 'all the congregation of your people Israel' ( יונתן המלך וכל קהל עמך ישראל ). If one argues that he is asking God to rise up against the king, we would expect a different word order, i.e.: עור קדש על יונתן המלך ויהו שלום כל קהל עמך ישראל , namely: 'Rise up, O Holy one against King Jonathan, (but) peace be for all the congregation of your people Israel'. 2. In light of the suggested exegesis, the word כלם ('all') in column B, line 7, is redundant. If the author is asking for peace only for 'all the congregation of your people Israel', then the word כלם has no meaning. Following Lemaire's contribution, we submit that 4Q448 Col. A, lines 5-10, comprises a complete literary unit. 2 Kings 19:3-4 states that King Hezekiah asked Isaiah to pray for the salvation of Jerusalem, but no such prayer is recorded. In the parllel account in 2 Chronicles 32:20 we find: 'Then King Hezekiah and the prophet Isaiah son of Amoz prayed about this, and cried out to heaven'. Nevertheless, here too their prayer was not included. A Second Temple-period scribe filled this lacuna by composing a prayer that was attributed to Hazekiah and Isaiah during Sennacherib's campaign against Jerusalem in-701 BCE, as this psalm's title states in the Syriac translation of psalm 154. We believe that 4Q448, Col. A, lines 5-10 contains the wording of this prayer. The link between the prayer of psalm 154 and the prayer for the welfare of King Jonathan may be identified in 4QpIsaa. At the beginning of Alexander Jannaeus' reign, in 103 BCE, Ptolemy Lathyrus invaded Judea and there was a real danger that Jerusalem would be conquered. When Ptolemy Lathyrus' mother, Cleopatra III, came to Jannaeus' aid, Ptolemy Lathyrus turned back to Egypt, leaving Jerusalem untouched. The author of 4QpIsaa interpreted Isa. 10:28-34 in light of Ptolemy Lathyrus' campaign against Judea in 103 BCE. This suggests, in our opinion, that the connection between column A and columns B and C of 4Q448 is based on this pesher. We assume that some scribe made a connection between the prayer that was assigned to Hezekiah and Isaiah and the prayer for the welfare of King Jonathan. We would like tentatively to suggest that 4Q448 is a sectarian composition, although this cannot be definitively proven. This prayer was probably composed at the beginning of Alexander Jannaeus reign, after 103 BCE, but before the Pharisees' revolt against that king in 88 BCE.