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1 his brother; for no one to be unfaithful to his own flesh and blood; to keep away from fornication 2 according to the rule; for each to reprove his brother according to the commandment, and not to bear a grudge 3 from one day to the next; to separate from all impurities according to their rule; and for no one to defile 4 his holy spirit, as God set them apart. All who walk 5 in these in holy perfection, according to all his instruction, the covenant of God stands firm for them, 6 to give them life for a thousand generations. And if they live in camps, according to the rule of the land, and take 7 wives and father sons, they shall walk according to the Torah and according to the rule of 8 the instructions, according to the rule of the Torah, as it says, “between a man and his wife, and between a father 9 and his son.” But all who reject: when God visits the land, to bring back the reward of the wicked 10 upon them, when there comes the word that is written in the words of Isaiah son of Amoz the prophet, 11 who said, “There will come upon you and upon your people and upon your father’s house days that have not 12 come since the day Ephraim turned away from Judah.” When the two houses of Israel separated, 13 Ephraim turned away from Judah, and all who turned back were handed over to the sword, but those who held fast 14 escaped to the land of the north. As it says, “And I will exile the Sikkut of your king⁠ 15 and the Kiyyun of your images from my tent to Damascus.” The books of the Torah are the booth of 16 the king, as it says, “And I will raise up the booth of David that is fallen.” The king 17 is the assembly. And the pedestals of the images, and the Kiyyun of the images, are the books of the prophets, 18 whose words Israel despised. And the star is the interpreter of the Torah 19 who comes to Damascus, as it is written, “A star marches out of Jacob, and a scepter rises 20 out of Israel.” The scepter is the prince of all the congregation, and when he arises he will tear down 21 all the sons of Seth. These escaped in the age of the first visitation,

Texts in conversation

Compare Amos 5:26 and CD 7:14

Hebrew Bible · Dead Sea Scrolls, Sectarian and Community Texts

Summary

Amos mentions 'Sikkuth' and 'Kiyyun,' who were Mesopotamian gods. Later interpreters, including the Damascus Document, misread them as 'tents' or 'tabernacles,' creating a connection to Israel's wilderness wandering connected to Amos's 'tent of David.'

Passages

Amos 5:26

Hebrew Bible

25 You did not bring me sacrifices and grain offerings during the 40 years you spent in the wilderness, family of Israel. 26 You will pick up your images of Sikkuth, your king, and Kiyyun, your star god, which you made for yourselves, 27 and I will drive you into exile beyond Damascus,” says the Lord. He is called the God of Heaven’s Armies.

600–501 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Amos

CD 7:14

Dead Sea Scrolls, Sectarian and Community Texts · Damascus Document

13 Ephraim turned away from Judah, and all who turned back were handed over to the sword, but those who held fast 14 escaped to the land of the north. As it says, “And I will exile the Sikkut of your king 15 and the Kiyyun of your images from my tent to Damascus.” The books of the Torah are the booth of 16 the king, as it says, “And I will raise up the booth of David that is fallen.” The king 17 is the assembly. And the pedestals of the images, and the Kiyyun of the images, are the books of the prophets, 18 whose words Israel despised. And the star is the interpreter of the Torah 19 who comes to Damascus, as it is written, “A star marches out of Jacob, and a scepter rises 20 out of Israel.” The scepter is the prince of all the congregation, and when he arises he will tear down 21 all the sons of Seth. These escaped in the age of the first visitation,

100–80 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in CD

References

"... Amos 5:26 ... The meaning of these two terms has long eluded translators and commentators. The Masoretes were not able to identify the terms and therefore vocalized both terms with the vowels of שִׁקּוּץ (“abomination, idol”). This uncertainty made its way into the early translations as well. The versions do not treat סכּות as a proper noun at all but as the common noun סֻכּוֹת (“sukkot,” “tent, tabernacle”). Thus, the Septuagint reads τὴν σκηνήν, while the Vulgate reads tabernaculum, both indicating סֻכּוֹת (“sukkot,” “tent, tabernacle”) as the Hebrew Vorlage. The Peshitta also follows this interpretation, translating מִשְׁכָּנָה (“mishkanah,” “tent”). The author of the Damascus Document also chooses to read סכּות as סֻכּוֹת (“sukkot,” “tent, tabernacle”) in his interpretation of Amos 5:26 ..."

Jeffrey L. Cooley, Poetic Astronomy in the Ancient Near East: The Reflexes of Celestial Science in Ancient Mesopotamian, Ugaritic, and Israelite Narrative, HACL 5 (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2013), 238.

"... In Amos 5:26 סכות (סִכּוּת) and כִּיּוּן (כִּיּוּן) are proper names for foreign Gods. This is clear from the context of the passage: Sikkuth and Kaiwan are synonymous with ‘your images’; the final clause of verse 26 reads (‘that you made for yourselves’). Although both the Old Greek and Damascus Document interpret the proper name Sikkuth in terms of the construct form סֻכַּת (that is, סֻכָּה), neither identifies the proper name as the noun ‘tabernacle’. First of all, the respective plene forms of the proper name and construct noun (סִכּוּת and סֻכַּת) are morphologically distinct and cannot be confused ..."

Jonathan D. H. Norton, Contours in the Text: Textual Variation in the Writings of Paul, Josephus, and the Yaḥad (London: T&T Clark International, 2011), 90.

"... Amos 5:26–27, a somewhat obscure allegation (in the form of a rhetorical question), followed by a prediction of deportation “beyond Damascus,” has here been transformed into a prophecy concerning rescue for the faithful in “the land of the north.” This midrash-like interpretation takes as its point of departure two enigmatic words in Amos 5:26: סכות and כיון, which have been vocalized sikkut and kiyyun, respectively, in the Masoretic text. According to modern scholarship, these expressions most likely represent pejorative forms of the names of two Mesopotamian astral deities, Sakkut and Kaiwan. It is unlikely, though, that the author of the Damascus Document was aware of that. His interpretation seems to have been guided by ambition to find a contextually relevant meaning, and the observation that these strange names appear together with the Hebrew words for “king” (מלך) and “star” (כוכב). Further, reading sukkôt (tents, tabernacles) rather than sikkut/ sakkut, this early interpreter managed to establish a connection to the promise in Amos 9:11, concerning the future restoration of “David’s fallen hut / tent ..."

Göran Eidevall, “Shifting Emphasis: Examples of Early and Modern Reception of the Book of Amos,” in Bridging between Sister Religions: Studies of Jewish and Christian Scriptures Offered in Honor of Prof. John T. Townsend, ed. Isaac Kalimi, BRLJ 51 (Leiden: Brill, 2016), 31–41.

References are not endorsements of their contents. Read each reference in full to understand its author's intentions in using these texts.

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CD18 chapters

Compare Amos 5:26 and CD 7:14

Summary

Passages

Amos 5:26

CD 7:14

References

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