The Pesher Habakkuk is one of the first Dead Sea Scrolls ever read by modern eyes, and it introduced the world to a revolutionary method of interpreting scripture. The Hebrew word "pesher" (פשר) means "interpretation," and the technique is simple: every line of the biblical prophet Habakkuk is quoted, then immediately followed by the community's interpretation of what it "really" means—and what it really means is always about the community itself.
(Habakkuk 1:6), for instance, describes the Chaldeans as "that bitter and hasty nation, which marches through the breadth of the earth." The pesher identifies them as the Kittim—almost certainly the Romans—who "sacrifice to their standards and worship their weapons of war." (Habakkuk 2:4), "the righteous shall live by his faith," is interpreted to mean specifically those who keep the Torah and remain loyal to the Teacher of Righteousness.
The pesher introduces two key figures. The Teacher of Righteousness (Moreh HaTzedek, מורה הצדק) is a priestly figure to whom God revealed the true meaning of all the prophets—meanings that the prophets themselves did not fully understand. Opposed to him is the Wicked Priest (HaKohen (a priest) HaRasha, הכהן הרשע), a figure of power who persecuted the Teacher and who, the pesher says, was "called by the name of truth when he first arose" but later became corrupt.
The identity of the Wicked Priest has been debated for seventy years. The most common candidates are the Hasmonean high priests of the 2nd and 1st centuries BCE. What matters theologically is the pesher's central claim: the Hebrew prophets were not writing about their own time. They were writing, in code, about the end of days—and only the Teacher of Righteousness held the key to breaking that code.