Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice

Sabbath Song 7

2nd Century BCE–1st Century CE

1For the Master. Song of the sacrifice of the seventh Sabbath on the sixteenth of the month. Praise the God of the exalted heights, O exalted ones among all the 2divine beings of knowledge. Let the Holy Ones of the godlike beings manify the king of glory who sanctifies by his holine all his holy ones. O chiefs of the lauding of 3all the godlike…

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A text from the Dead Sea Scrolls found at Qumran, Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice presents a series of hymns to be intoned on the Sabbaths of the first thirteen weeks of the year. The hymns are sung by angels officiating in the heavenly Temple as sacrifices are offered by angelic priests. The liturgical performance of these hymns at Qumran suggests that the community thereby associated itself with the angelic officiants at the celestial Temple and attempted to participate in their experience. Because the Qumran community removed itself from the Jerusalem Temple, which it viewed as hopelessly corrupted and impure, its identification with the ultimate sacrificial rites in the celestial Temple, viewed as God’s permanent abode, was especially significant. The imagery of holy tumult at the end of song 7, with the cherubim and ’ofanim (animate wheels in God’s chariot) praising “the chiefs of the form of God” in “the holy inner room,” alludes to the visions of Ezekiel in Ezekiel 1–3 and 10. This imagery becomes significant in rabbinic liturgy as well.