Jerusalem Delivered to the Romans

Pesher Nahum to Nahum 2:12

2nd Century BCE–1st Century CE

Fragments 3–4

Column 1

1[ . . . ] Where a lion went to go into it, a lion cub2[without anyone confining him (Nahum 2:12). Its interpretation concerns Deme]trius, king of Yavan, who wanted to enter Jerusalem on the advice of those looking for easy interpretations, 3[but he did not enter, for God had not given Jerusalem] into the hand of the kings of…

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In the sectarian scrolls from Qumran (the Dead Sea Scrolls), the term Kittim (derived from a place-name for an Aegean island, possibly Cyprus) serves as a code word for Romans. Biblical prophecies concerning earlier conquerors of Israel such as the Babylonians or the Assyrians were decoded in the sect’s pesher (commentary) literature as referring to oppression by the Kittim, or Romans. This passage is a commentary on Nahum, originally directed against the Assyrians. The term Yavan refers to Greece.

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