The Qumran Targum of Job (11Q10)
A substantial Aramaic translation of Job 17-42 shows sophisticated Jewish interpretation of the difficult Hebrew book before the later rabbinic targums.
- Artifact date
- Late first century BC or early first century AD
- Findspot
- Qumran Cave 11
- Current location
- Israel Antiquities Authority collections
What archaeologists can actually examine
11Q10 preserves an Aramaic rendering of much of Job 17:14-42:11 in dozens of columns and fragments. It generally follows the Hebrew sequence while selecting meanings, smoothing obscure expressions, and occasionally expanding or explicating through scriptural allusion. Its age makes it the largest early witness to targum-like translation from Qumran and demonstrates that Job was translated and interpreted in Aramaic before later rabbinic compilations. It is not a Hebrew copy of Job and therefore must be used carefully when reconstructing its underlying source text.
A major early Aramaic Job
The scroll preserves substantial translation from Job 17 through 42, far more than an isolated quotation.
Translation and interpretation overlap
Selections, substitutions, expansions, and scriptural allusions disclose how the translator understood difficult Hebrew.
Genre remains debated
Scholars differ on whether its restrained explication qualifies as targum or an early Aramaic translation of another kind.
Job 38-42 is especially valuable
Extended survival across the divine speeches and conclusion enables close synoptic comparison with Hebrew and later versions.
Follow the evidence from discovery to debate
Move through the find in a deliberate order: establish its provenance, examine the surviving object, place it in time, and then weigh the scholarly interpretation.
How the find came to light
Cave 11 near Qumran yielded the manuscript in 1956 amid other major scrolls. The pieces passed through antiquities-market channels and scholarly hands before J. P. M. van der Ploeg and A. S. van der Woude published an early edition; Michael Sokoloff and later the official DJD XXIII edition refined readings and column arrangement. Conservation and photography revealed a long but damaged roll. Comparative study with Hebrew Job, the Syriac Peshitta, and rabbinic Targum Job has shifted attention from mere translation accuracy to interpretive technique.
What you are looking at
The parchment roll survives in numerous fragments preserving portions from the second half of Job. Aramaic square script is arranged in columns with margins and line spacing typical of a literary scroll. The translation often renders clause by clause but responds to Job's rare vocabulary with substitutions, explanatory choices, and altered syntax. Job 37-39 is especially useful because extended material permits sustained comparison. Missing beginnings, torn lines, and uncertain joins mean that neither the opening chapters nor every transition can be reconstructed from 11Q10.
Where it belongs in history
Palaeography usually dates the copy to the late first century BCE or early first century CE. The translation itself may predate this exemplar, but there is no colophon identifying author, place, or liturgical use. Aramaic served Jewish communities widely, so a Qumran find does not prove sectarian composition. The manuscript belongs to a multilingual scriptural culture in which Hebrew source texts could be translated for comprehension and simultaneously interpreted. A smaller Job targum from Cave 4 confirms that 11Q10 was not the sole Aramaic engagement with the book.
Consensus, questions, and debate
The central debate is whether 11Q10 should be called a targum in the later genre sense or simply an Aramaic translation. David Shepherd emphasizes differences from classical rabbinic targums; Sandra Gold argues that its scriptural allusions and subtle explication justify recognizing early targumic interpretation. Scholars also assess whether distinctive readings arise from another Hebrew source, free translation, or inner-biblical interpretation. Consensus holds that the work is neither mechanically literal nor expansively midrashic, and that its early date complicates a simple linear history of targum.
The biblical record beside the artifact
The manuscript directly renders Job, with particularly extensive survival across Job 38-41, where God answers from the whirlwind, and into Job 42:1-11, where Job responds and his fortunes turn. Comparison shows how an ancient translator understood difficult creatures, weather, divine speech, and Job's confession. Because every translation interprets, 11Q10 supplies early reception evidence for ambiguous Hebrew words. It does not replace the Hebrew text, and an Aramaic rendering that clarifies a phrase may reflect contextual explanation rather than a different Hebrew Vorlage.
Job 42:1–17
1Then Job answered the LORD, and said,
2I know that thou canst do every [thing], and [that] no thought can be withholden from thee.
3Who [is] he that hideth counsel without knowledge? therefore have I uttered that I understood not; things too wonderful for me, which I knew not.
4Hear, I beseech thee, and I will speak: I will demand of thee, and declare thou unto me.
5I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear: but now mine eye seeth thee.
6Wherefore I abhor [myself], and repent in dust and ashes.
7¶ And it was [so], that after the LORD had spoken these words unto Job, the LORD said to Eliphaz the Temanite, My wrath is kindled against thee, and against thy two friends: for ye have not spoken of me [the thing that is] right, as my servant Job [hath].
8Therefore take unto you now seven bullocks and seven rams, and go to my servant Job, and offer up for yourselves a burnt offering; and my servant Job shall pray for you: for him will I accept: lest I deal with you [after your] folly, in that ye have not spoken of me [the thing which is] right, like my servant Job.
9So Eliphaz the Temanite and Bildad the Shuhite [and] Zophar the Naamathite went, and did according as the LORD commanded them: the LORD also accepted Job.
10And the LORD turned the captivity of Job, when he prayed for his friends: also the LORD gave Job twice as much as he had before.
11Then came there unto him all his brethren, and all his sisters, and all they that had been of his acquaintance before, and did eat bread with him in his house: and they bemoaned him, and comforted him over all the evil that the LORD had brought upon him: every man also gave him a piece of money, and every one an earring of gold.
12So the LORD blessed the latter end of Job more than his beginning: for he had fourteen thousand sheep, and six thousand camels, and a thousand yoke of oxen, and a thousand she asses.
13He had also seven sons and three daughters.
14And he called the name of the first, Jemima; and the name of the second, Kezia; and the name of the third, Keren-happuch.
15And in all the land were no women found [so] fair as the daughters of Job: and their father gave them inheritance among their brethren.
16After this lived Job an hundred and forty years, and saw his sons, and his sons’ sons, [even] four generations.
17So Job died, [being] old and full of days.
A responsible historical conclusion
11Q10 lets readers watch interpretation happen at the level of individual words. Job's Hebrew is famously difficult; the translator had to decide what rare terms meant, how poetic clauses connected, and when an allusion could make the sense clearer. Those choices preserve ancient Jewish exegesis embedded in a usable vernacular version. The manuscript therefore bridges textual criticism, language history, and reception study. It also shows that translating Scripture was not secondary to preservation: translation itself was a disciplined way of understanding a revered text.
Authoritative sources
Institutional catalogs, excavation reports, and academic publications let you examine the evidence beyond this summary.
11Q Targum Job
Israel Antiquities Authority, Leon Levy Dead Sea Scrolls Digital LibraryOfficial manuscript catalog, photographs, and publication bibliography for 11Q10.
Understanding the Book of Job: 11Q10, the Peshitta and the Rabbinic Targum
University of Oxford Research ArchiveDetailed synoptic study of Job 37-39, translation techniques, scriptural allusion, and the early-targum classification debate.
11QAramaic Job: The Qumran Targum as an Ancient Aramaic Version of Job
University of Edinburgh Research ArchiveIndependent full-length comparison with the Peshitta and rabbinic targum focused on genre and translation profile.
Introduction: Mediate Immediately
Oxford University PressRecent academic discussion using 11Q10's handling of Job's rare vocabulary within the history of interpreting the book.