Hodayot

The Hodayot scroll from Qumran Cave 1 was one of the first scrolls discovered there and is one of the longest. Additional, fragmentary manuscripts of the text have also been found in Caves 1 and 4. The scroll contains two types of hymns: “community” hymns, which are voiced in the first-person plural, and “teacher” hymns, which are voiced in the first-person singular and mostly begin with the phrase ’odekha ’Adonai (I praise you, Adonai). The care with which the texts were copied and their varying order in the separate manuscripts suggest that the hymns were recited liturgically at Qumran rather than being merely literary and read for contemplation. Presented here are two of the “teacher” hymns. Characteristic of these hymns are their emphasis on the divine gift of knowledge and enlightenment and their theme of divine rescue from enemies and persecutors.