The pesharim are some of the best-known biblical exegeses to be found among the Dead Sea Scrolls. They are scriptural commentaries named after the technical Hebrew term pesher (pl. pesharim) which characteristically appears in formulae that introduce an exposition of a biblical verse (e.g., ‘the intepretation [Hebrew: pesher] of the matter is …’). This particular genre of exegesis figures prominently in almost all textbooks on the Qumran scrolls and has been sensationalized by Barbara