Priestly Service: Sabbath, Month, and Festival — Year Four

Qumran, Cave 4, fragments 4Q326

The information below is contained in A New Translation The Dead Sea Scrolls by Wise, Abegg, and Cook, page 404

Author Commentary (paraphrased)

This passage documents the Sabbaths, the first days of solar months, and the festivals, seemingly pertaining to the fourth year of the familiar six-year cycle found in other calendrical texts. The remnants do not retain the names of any priestly divisions but imply a possible connection to the priestly cycle. During this period, Sabbaths were the only designated days on which the Yahudim might have had at least some consensus, as the Sabbath consistently occurred on the seventh day. The text indicates that the Qumran calendars linked the Sabbath, like all other festivals, to specific dates. Consequently, even the Sabbaths became points of contention in the calendar disputes.

Fragment 1

1In the first month: on the fourt[h of the month is a Sabbath. …] 2On the eleventh of the month is a Sabba[th. On the fourteenth of the month is the Passover, on the third day of the week. On the fifteenth of the month] 3is the Feast of Unleavened Bread, on the fou[rth day of the wee. On the twenty-fifth of the month is] 4a Sabbath. On the twenty-sixth of the month is the B[arley] Festival, [on the day after the Sabbath. The first month] 5has thirty days. On the second of the [(second) month is a Sabbath. On the nineth of the month is a Sabbath. On the sixteenth…] — M.G.A.

The Barley Festival, mentioned in l.4 is elsewhere called the Waving of the Omer.