Define Intervention

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What is a “pesher”?

1. A type of grinding tool
2. A biblical song or hymn
3. A type of biblical commentary
4. Part of a camel’s harness
5. An ancient list of tribes or cities

Answer: (3) A type of biblical commentary

A pesher (plural: pesharim) is a distinctive style of biblical commentary known most famously from the Dead Sea Scrolls. It is essentially a line-by-line walkthrough of a biblical text, with each line or section followed by an interpretation—a pesher—that purports to illuminate or explain the biblical passage.

A number of pesharim are attested among the Dead Sea Scrolls, but the most famous is known as Pesher Habakkuk (the first columns of which are pictured here). This scroll was one of the initial seven to be discovered, and it continues to shape scholarship on the scrolls and the Qumran community. A sample from this document provides a clear example of the pesher style, with the text of the Book of Habakkuk interspersed with comments every few lines:

“Dread and fearsome are they; their justice and dignity proceed from themselves.” (Habakkuk 1:7)

Its pesher (interpretation) concerns the Kittim (Romans), the fear and dread of whom are on all the nations; all their thoughts are premeditated to do evil, and with cunning and treachery they behave toward all the peoples.

Most notable in this example, as throughout the Qumran pesharim, is the inclination to read the biblical text as bearing directly on the time and circumstances of the pesher’s authorship. Thus here, whereas in the biblical context the verse from Habakkuk is part of a lengthy pronouncement about the Babylonians, the author of the pesher reads it instead as a reference to the Romans—the empire in control of the southern Levant when the commentary was written.