The word "who came" is הבא (בא) and that word is in perfect tense (usually interpreted as simple past tense). The author could easily use imperfect tense if he wanted to say "who will come" but he didn't.I see it as the head of the kings of Greece (let's say a Roman emperor) wreaking vengeance upon the kings of Greece (i.e., Hellenised Jewish kings, like the Herodians). And some have this as "who will come" rather than "who came," the way that you suggest the Wicked Priest only plotted to kill the Teacher rather than actually having done it.
I'm inclined to see it like Knibb, who writes, "But in the context of the passage as a whole these words make more sense as a threat than as an account of a past event" (https://www.google.com/books/edition/Th ... frontcover).
Of course, that doesn't mean that "the chief" already wreaked vengeance so it still could be a threat but even in this case he already came.
I'll have to leave the grammar to you (it's not my thing at all, and I used to have Ben to help me on those matters), but I'm seeing a lot of "who will come" and "who comes" out there, for what it's worth.
It is also strange that the DSS community would have expected that Romans would somehow wreak vengeance on Herodians who basically collaborated with them. Romans "ridicule [enemy] kings and princes" and they are "ravaging many [enemy] lands". But in the first century CE Romans already "devoured" the Jewish "nation". I think there is no reasonable expectation that collaborating Hellenized kings, who were made kings by a Roman emperor, would be eventually wreaked with vengeance by a Roman emperor.
But that is how it works in the OT, i.e., God uses other nations to punish "bad" Jews. Josephus does it too when he says God used the Romans to punish Fourth Philosophic Jews. And I figure Fourth Philosophic Jews (who I think wrote and inherited the DSS) might have expected God to use the Romans to punish Herodians regardless of the fact that they had been made kings by a Roman emperor.
Also let's look at another place in DSS documents where kings of Greece are mentioned (Commentary on Nahum, 4Q169, Frags. 3 + 4, I col, 1-3, Vermes):Whither the lion goes, there is the lion’s cub, [with none to disturb it] (ii, 11b).
[Interpreted, this concerns Deme]trius king of Greece who sought, on the counsel of those who seek smooth things, to enter Jerusalem. [But God did not permit the city to be delivered] into the hands of the kings of Greece, from the time of Antiochus until the coming of the rulers of the Kittim. But then she shall be trampled under their feet …
I don't think Herodians are meant here and therefore, as I said before, it would be very confusing that the phrase "kings of Greece" could describe Greek kings and also Hellenized Jewish kings.
But the Teacher isn't mentioned in 1QpNah, and we both agree that the Kittim are the Romans, so to me the Teacher lived after 1QpNah was written, after the Kittim had arrived and done away with these Greek kings, so they're not around anymore. And no Greek kings are named in writings that mention the Teacher. And I think the DSS sect could have continued to use this terminology against the Herodians in the writings that mention the Teacher as an insult and in order to play on "wine" in the underlying Dt. 32:33.
Statistics: Posted by John2 — Sat Nov 09, 2024 3:55 pm