4Q417
4QInstructionIf men’s money you borrow for your poverty, do not let there be [sleep for] you day and night, nor rest for your soul [...until] you have restored to your creditor [his money]. Do not lie to him lest you bear guilt. And moreover from reproach to your creditor [...and do not entrust] it further to his neighbor. And against your poverty he will shut his hand. Your strength [...] and like him borrow, and know Him who has lent it to you. And if a flogging befalls you and it [hasten...pa]in, do not conceal from him who [flogs you] lest he uncover your reproach [...] a ruler over him, and then he will not smite him with a rod [...thirty-] nine and no more. And moreover, you [O understanding child...]
2 Corinthians 11:24
22 Are they Hebrews? So am I. Are they Israelites? So am I. Are they descendants of Abraham? So am I. 23 Are they servants of Christ? (I am talking like I am out of my mind!) I am even more so: with much greater labors, with far more imprisonments, with more severe beatings, facing death many times. 24 Five times I received from the Jews forty lashes less one. 25 Three times I was beaten with a rod. Once I received a stoning. Three times I suffered shipwreck. A night and a day I spent adrift in the open sea. 26 I have been on journeys many times, in dangers from rivers, in dangers from robbers, in dangers from my own countrymen, in dangers from Gentiles, in dangers in the city, in dangers in the wilderness, in dangers at sea, in dangers from false brothers,
Notes and References
"... The rest of the column (or what can be read of it) concerns financial matters. The first instructions concern scarcity and surplus (i 17–18), willingness to borrow (i 19), and confidence that God will supply what is necessary: “according to His command everything shall come into being; and that which He gives you for food eat it” (i 20). Then after a clear instruction to pay back loans quickly (“do not let there be sleep for you day or night, nor rest for your soul”) and to be honest with one’s creditor (i 21–22), there are fragmentary and thus obscure teachings about financial dealings and the punishments that one may have to endure in them. The punishment here may be quite specific — flogging. If so, there may be a reference to thirty-nine strokes as in 2 Corinthians 11:24: “and then he will not smite him with a rod [… thirty ...] nine and no more” (i 27–28) ..."
Harrington, Daniel J. Wisdom Texts from Qumran (p. 52) Routledge, 1996