What Is Melchizedek?

The mid-first-century BCE eschatological work 11QMelchizedek was found among the Dead Sea Scrolls at Qumran, preserved in eleven fragments from Cave 11. It is focused on Melchizedek, a mysterious figure in Genesis 14 called “priest to El Elyon.” Here Melchizedek is the heavenly deliverer, identical to the angel Michael, who presides over the final judgment and condemns Belial, his demonic counterpart. All this is thought to take place on the Day of Atonement at the end of the tenth jubilee cycle, the “year of grace” (Isaiah 61:2) of Melchizedek’s rule. The text also frames this event as the fulfillment of Isaiah’s proclamation “to proclaim release to the captives, liberation to the imprisoned” (Isaiah 61:1).

This apocalypse sheds light on how the figure of Melchizedek was understood in the Second Temple period and thereby also on the appearance of Melchizedek in the New Testament’s Letter to the Hebrews, wherein he is a central figure.