Who is the Teacher of Righteousness?
Difficulties arise when one tries to describe the Teacher of Righteousness; however, the complexity that most affects the description deals with whether to place the figure in the past or in the future. Many point to this ambiguity in a midrash of Num 21:18 that is in the Damascus Document.26 Unlike other passages in the same document, the figure mentioned here is in the future. The well is the Law, and those who dug it were the converts of Israel who went out of the land of Judah to sojourn in the land of Damascus….The Staff is the Interpreter of the Law of whom Isaiah said, He makes a tool for His work; and the nobles of the peoples are those who come to dig the well with the staffs with which the staff ordained that they should walk in all age of wickedness- and without them they shall find nothing- until he comes who shall teach righteousness at the end of days. (CD, VI) Here, confusion arises because the titles Interpreter of the Law and Teacher of Righteousness are interchangea
