The Dead Sea Scrolls date from the 3rd century BCE to the first century CE. Many biblical texts were found in these scrolls. These scrolls were first discovered in 1947. Prior to the discovery of the Dead Sea scrolls, the earliest Tanach texts we had were from the ninth and 10th centuries.

In 1979, there was another important discovery in the field of biblical texts. Two amulets from the seventh century BCE were discovered which included texts of a portion of Birkat Kohanim (Numbers 6:24-26). These amulets were amulets placed on dead bodies to protect them. The amulets were not written to be texts of the Torah. A significant portion of the text in each amulet mostly matches our Birkat Kohanim verses.

Here is the unusual story of how these two amulets were discovered. In 1979, Professor Gabriel Barkay began excavations on the western edge of Jerusalem’s Hinnom Valley. The location was the area of an ancient tomb. Professor Barkay was working with a team of youth archaeologists.

He told the story in an interview: “We excavated by … the present-day church. The graves were in bad shape with collapsed roofs. The caves had all been looted. … (We) discovered a repository where they buried the bones and I looked into that repository and saw something that looked like a rock floor. I was disappointed. Among the 13-year-old diggers, there was one annoying kid named ‘Nathan.’ I thought this was an ideal place to put him—he would be out of my sight. I told Nathan the repository had to be as clean as his mother’s kitchen … for the photography. Not too long afterwards … Nathan had in his hand almost complete pottery vessels… I asked where he found them. Bored, Nathan had banged on the floor with a hammer. Under the rocks, he found the pottery … ”

“I recruited archaeology students from Tel Aviv and Jerusalem and we worked 24 hours around the clock. In one chamber more than a thousand objects were found. They included 125 objects of silver, 40 iron arrowheads, gold, ivory, glass, bone and 150 semi-precious stones. There was 60 centimeters of accumulation filled with objects and skeletal remains. There was a lot of dust and a lack of oxygen. It was very hot. We had to change teams every few hours. … Everyone was sworn to secrecy—they weren’t allowed to tell parents, spouses or friends. If word got around Jerusalem that there was such a treasure, the California gold rush would be nothing compared to what would happen here.”

Two objects discovered in the burial cave looked like cigarette butts. But upon closer inspection, they turned out to be extremely tiny, tightly rolled scrolls made of silver. The words were written on the silver itself. These were amulets. They were probably covered in wood or cloth, but the coverings did not survive.

The task of unrolling these scrolls was extremely risky. Universities in Britain and Germany were consulted but were afraid to attempt to open them. Finally, the scrolls were given to the Israel Museum, which came up with a creative way of opening them. But it was an excruciatingly slow process that went on for months. The larger of the two amulets, unrolled, measures about four inches by one inch. The smaller measures about one inch by one-half inch.

When deciphered, no one could have expected the significance of what was revealed: two texts which included material that closely matched the text of Numbers 6:24-26. The texts are widely estimated to date to the late seventh century BCE. (But, admittedly, some date them later.) The reason the texts don’t match the verses exactly is that these were not meant as texts of the Torah but were versions made for amulets.

Let us discuss the smaller amulet first, which has more of our Birkat Kohanim. It is lines 5-12 of this text. (Line 12 is the last line of the text. The first few lines of this text are: “May he/she be blessed by YKVK (Yud Key Vav Key), the warrior/helper and the rebuker of evil.”)

Numbers 6:24 has: יברכך, YKVK, וישמרך. This amulet has: 1) for the first word, only four letters: יברכ; and 2) the four letter name of God, matching the word in the verse; and 3) the last word without the initial “vav.” It is widely agreed that in the first word, the reason the second כ is not there is that the one כ was doing double duty. (There are other examples of this. That is for a different column. Note that there were no special “final letters” in the era of the First Temple period.)

Numbers 6:25 has: “Ya’er YKVK panav eilecha vichuneka.” The amulet leaves out the last word. (The vav in the name of God, and the first two letters of אליך were surely originally there but are no longer visible.)

Numbers 6:26 has: “Yisa YKVK panav eilecha, veyasem lecha shalom.” The amulet leaves out the first four words. (The last word was spelled שלם, lacking the vav in this early stage of Hebrew writing. The middle letter, lamed, is no longer visible.)

Now, let us discuss the longer amulet (which only has two of the three Birkat Kohanim sentences):

The first line has יברכ (same unusual spelling as above), followed by YKVK, followed by שמרכ. It is probable that at the beginning of that last word, there was originally an initial yod, or an initial וי.

The second line has “Ya’er YKVK panav.” (Admittedly the first two letters of יאר are no longer visible. Same with the last two letters of פניו.)

The above is lines 14-18 of the amulet. The first 13 lines have some familiar biblical phrases.

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Two texts dating to the late seventh century BCE which closely parallel our Birkat Kohanim verses are truly a remarkable find! (Note that we do not have any Dead Sea Scroll texts of the Birkat Kohanim verses.)

It has also now been suggested that the enigmatic phrase at Numbers 6:27: “Vesamu et shemi al Bnei Yisrael” may reflect the idea of physically wearing God’s name and this blessing. (The same interpretive issue—figurative or literal—arises in the context of the verses about tefillin.)

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This column is based in part on an article in “Let the Stones Speak,” (Sept-Oct. 2024). This is a new print magazine (published by non-Jews) relating to archaeology in biblical Israel. One can subscribe to it for free at ArmstrongInstitute.org. I thank Chanan Cohen for telling me about this new magazine.

For further background on Birkat Kohanim and parallels to it in the ancient world, see the article by Professor Jack Sasson in Torat Moshe (2022), a collection of essays dedicated to Rabbi Moshe Shamah. (I would like to thank Abe Mamiye for giving me this fascinating volume.)

Mitchell First can be reached at MFirstAtty@aol.com. Sasson has been fascinated with Birkat Kohanim since his childhood in Beirut. He writes: “I am thrilled over the remarkable vision (yes, I peeked!) of ghost-like figures … covered in their tallit, with arms spreading like wings, rhythmically intoning while swaying, seemingly landing on earth from other worlds.”