Ezekiel’s Promised Spirit as adam’s Revelatory Spirit in the Hodayot

Abstract

Abstract“And I know by the spirit that you placed in me” is a recurring formula in 1QHodayota (5:35–36; 20:14–15; 21:34). This essay demonstrates this formula’s compositional genesis with respect to the union of its constituent parts: the epistemic formula (“I know that”); and the divine-inputting formula (“that you placed in me”). Ezekiel’s promised spirit (Ezek 36:16–37:14) motivated this union, and 1QHa reaccentuates Ezekiel’s spirit as a revelatory spirit. This essay also shows the significance of the formula’s distribution in psalms of the Maskil, and its placement in contexts that conjoin Ezekiel’s promised spirit (Ezek 36:16–37:14) with adam’s creation (Genesis 1–3). The Maskil is liturgically enacted as an ignorant adamic “I” (Gen 2:7a) who is now a divinely inspirited adam (Ezek 36:16–37:14; Gen 2:7b), possessing the revelatory spirit that gives him the esoteric knowledge of God’s universe-ordering wisdom. The Maskil mediates his knowledge of the mystery to his community.