The poems contained in the Thanksgiving Hymn Scroll are similar to the biblical Psalms. They are mostly hymns of thanksgiving, individual prayers as opposed to those intended for communal worship, expressing a rich variety of spiritual and doctrinal detail. But the two fundamental themes running through the whole collection are those of salvation and knowledge. The sectary thanks God continually for having been saved from the ‘lot’ of the wicked, and for his gift of insight into the divine mysteries. He, a ‘creature of clay’, has been singled out by his Maker to receive favours of which he feels himself unworthy and he alludes again and again to his frailty and total dependence on God.