JOB TARGUM, 11Q10

This scroll from Cave 11 near Qumran includes one large 109 cm fragment plus about 50 smaller pieces. The Targum Job was discovered as a rolled but heavily damaged scroll, roughly 14 cm tall, preserving 39 columns of text across one of Qumran’s most extensive Aramaic manuscripts. Four Job manuscripts were found in the Qumran caves. This Job Targum is one of two known Aramaic translations of the original Hebrew—Aramaic being the common language of Judea after the Babylonian Exile. The black ink letters hang from evenly spaced horizontal lines, written right to left. Job’s Hebrew text, filled with complex ideas and grammatical challenges, ranks among the most difficult books in the Hebrew Bible. Even educated readers of the Dead Sea Scrolls era likely struggled with it. The Aramaic translation deviates from the Hebrew, showing how challenging this text was to translate. While mostly following the Hebrew Masoretic version, the translation sometimes resembles the Greek version (LXX) and occasionally matches no known version. This suggests Job’s text wasn’t yet standardized during the Second Temple period—multiple versions coexisted. The translator’s perspective emerges in certain passages. Job appears more favorably here than in the Hebrew text, portrayed as a righteous sufferer. The translation emphasizes that while sinners deserve punishment, Job wasn’t punished for any sin. The four displayed fragments are among 28 oval-shaped pieces, their similar shape indicating they were stacked atop each other in the scroll’s successive layers.

Column XVII

Detail Translation

1 ^{Job 36:7} Kings sitting o[n their thrones, and all] his [fr]iends will be exalted in safety.

2 ⁸And even with those bound in [chains, hel]d in the cords of the poor.

3 ⁹And he shows the[ir] works [and] their [iniquities] because they exalted themselves. ¹⁰And he will open

4 their ears for instruction, and s[ay to them:] If they turn from their evil deeds,

5 ¹¹if they listen and do[, they shall complete] their days in goodness, and their years

6 in honor and pleasure. [¹²And if] they [do not list]en, they shall fall by the sword

7 and perish without kn[owledge. ¹³[…] their [h]eart for anger

8 upon them, ¹⁴and […] their [vill]age by killers.

9 ¹⁵And He delivers [the] p[oor …] on their ears.

10 [¹⁶…] not […]

[ . . . ] = a gap in the text owing to damage or illegibility

[xxx] = restoration of missing text based on other versions of the same text or scholarly research

LORD = the Tetragrammaton, the four-letter name of God in the Hebrew Bible