Texts in Conversation
Isaiah asks who can live with unquenchable fire and answers with a description of the righteous. In 4Q184 from the Dead Sea Scrolls, everlasting fire becomes the dwelling of the wicked woman, suggesting punishment after death.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Isaiah 33:14-16
Hebrew Bible
14 Sinners are afraid in Zion; panic grips the godless. They say, “Who among us can coexist with destructive fire? Who among us can coexist with unquenchable fire?” 15 The one who lives uprightly and speaks honestly, the one who refuses to profit from oppressive measures and rejects a bribe, the one who does not plot violent crimes and does not seek to harm others— 16 this is the person who will live in a secure place; he will find safety in the rocky, mountain strongholds; he will have food and a constant supply of water.
4Q184 1:5-8
The Seductress
Dead Sea Scrolls, Wisdom and Instruction
5 Her coverings are the deep darkness of twilight, and her ornaments are plagues of the pit. Her couches, her beds, are beds of Sheol […] 6 depths of the pit. Her lodgings are couches of darkness, and in the dead of night are her dominions. From the foundations of deep darkness 7 she pitches her dwelling, and she resides in the tents of silence, in the midst of everlasting burnings. She has no inheritance among all 8 the lights of brightness. She is the beginning of all the ways of iniquity. Woe, disaster to all who inherit her, and ruin to all
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Notes and References
“... These expressions do not describe the time of night when the
woman stalks through city streets, as in Prov 7. It is the darkness of
the underworld where she resides. 4Q184 elaborates the claim in
Proverbs that the Strange Woman represents a path to death. The
language of darkness and death is intensified with a more vivid
description of Sheol than in Proverbs. [...] The tents of the woman are in the midst of "eternal flames" [...] (4Q184 1 7; cf. Isa 33:14).
50 Proverbs never describes the
Strange Woman in this way. The "eternal flames" suggest that the
author of 4Q184 believed in punishment after death. ...”
Goff, Matthew J.
Discerning Wisdom: The Sapiential Literature of the Dead Sea Scrolls
(p. 115) Brill, 2007
* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.
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