Textorah

I Samuel 6

1
וַיְהִי אֲרוֹן־יְהוָה בִּשְׂדֵה פְלִשְׁתִּים שִׁבְעָה חֳדָשִׁים
And the ark of HaShem was in the country of the Philistines seven months.
Καὶ ἦν ἡ κιβωτὸς ἐν ἀγρῷ τῶν ἀλλοφύλων ἑπτὰ μῆνας, καὶ ἐξέζεσεν ἡ γῆ αὐτῶν μύας.
And the ark was seven months in the country of the Philistines, and their land brought forth swarms of mice.
2
וַיִּקְרְאוּ פְלִשְׁתִּים לַכֹּהֲנִים וְלַקֹּסְמִים לֵאמֹר מַה־נַּעֲשֶׂה לַאֲרוֹן יְהוָה הוֹדִעֻנוּ בַּמֶּה נְשַׁלְּחֶנּוּ לִמְקוֹמוֹ
And the Philistines called for the priests and the diviners, saying: 'What shall we do with the ark of HaShem? declare unto us wherewith we shall send it to its place.'
Καὶ καλοῦσιν ἀλλόφυλοι τοὺς ἱερεῖς καὶ τοὺς μάντεις καὶ τοὺς ἐπαοιδοὺς αὐτῶν, λέγοντες, τί ποιήσωμεν τῇ κιβωτῷ Κυρίου; γνωρίσατε ἡμῖν ἐν τίνι ἀποστελοῦμεν αὐτὴν εἰς τὸν τόπον αὐτῆς.
And the Philistines call their priests, and their prophets, and their enchanters, saying, What shall we do to the ark of the Lord? teach us wherewith we shall send it away to its place.
3
וַיֹּאמְרוּ אִם־מְשַׁלְּחִים אֶת־אֲרוֹן אֱלֹהֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל אַל־תְּשַׁלְּחוּ אֹתוֹ רֵיקָם כִּי־הָשֵׁב תָּשִׁיבוּ לוֹ אָשָׁם אָז תֵּרָפְאוּ וְנוֹדַע לָכֶם לָמָּה לֹא־תָסוּר יָדוֹ מִכֶּם
And they said: 'If ye send away the ark of the G-d of Israel, send it not empty; but in any wise return Him a guilt-offering; then ye shall be healed, and it shall be known to you why His hand is not removed from you.'
Καὶ εἶπαν, εἰ ἐξαποστέλλετε ὑμεῖς τὴν κιβωτὸν διαθήκης Κυρίου Θεοῦ Ἰσραήλ, μὴ δὴ ἐξαποστείλητε αὐτὴν κενήν, ἀλλὰ ἀποδιδόντες ἀπόδοτε αὐτῇ τῆς βασάνου, καὶ τότε ἰαθήσεσθε, καὶ ἐξιλασθήσεται ὑμῖν· μὴ οὐκ ἀποστῇ ἡ χεὶρ αὐτοῦ ἀφʼ ὑμῶν;
And they said, If ye send away the ark of the covenant of the Lord God of Israel, do not on any account send it away empty, but by all means render to it an offering for the plague; and then shall ye be healed, and an atonement shall be made for you: should not his hand be [thus] stayed from off you?
4
וַיֹּאמְרוּ מָה הָאָשָׁם אֲשֶׁר נָשִׁיב לוֹ וַיֹּאמְרוּ מִסְפַּר סַרְנֵי פְלִשְׁתִּים חֲמִשָּׁה עפלי טְחֹרֵי זָהָב וַחֲמִשָּׁה עַכְבְּרֵי זָהָב כִּי־מַגֵּפָה אַחַת לְכֻלָּם וּלְסַרְנֵיכֶם
Then said they: 'What shall be the guilt-offering which we shall return to Him?' And they said: 'Five golden emerods, and five golden mice, according to the number of the lords of the Philistines; for one plague was on you all, and on your lords.
Καὶ λέγουσι, τί τὸ τῆς βασάνου ἀποδώσομεν αὐτῇ; καὶ εἶπαν, κατα ἀριθμὸν τῶν σατραπῶν τῶν ἀλλοφύλων πέντε ἕδρας χρυσᾶς, ὅτι πταῖσμα ἐν ὑμῖν καὶ τοῖς ἄρχουσιν ὑμῶν καὶ τῷ λαῷ,
And they say, What [is] the offering for the plague [which] we shall return to it? and they said,
5
וַעֲשִׂיתֶם צַלְמֵי עפליכם טְחֹרֵיכֶם וְצַלְמֵי עַכְבְּרֵיכֶם הַמַּשְׁחִיתִם אֶת־הָאָרֶץ וּנְתַתֶּם לֵאלֹהֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל כָּבוֹד אוּלַי יָקֵל אֶת־יָדוֹ מֵעֲלֵיכֶם וּמֵעַל אֱלֹהֵיכֶם וּמֵעַל אַרְצְכֶם
Wherefore ye shall make images of your emerods, and images of your mice that mar the land; and ye shall give glory unto the G-d of Israel; peradventure He will lighten His hand from off you, and from off your gods, and from off your land.
καὶ μῦς χρυσοῦς ὁμοίωμα τῶν μυῶν ὑμῶν τῶν διαφθειρόντων τὴν γῆν· καὶ δώσετε τῷ Κυρίῳ δόξαν, ὅπως κουφίσῃ τὴν χεῖρα αὐτοῦ ἀφʼ ὑμῶν, καὶ ἀπὸ τῶν θεῶν ὑμῶν, καὶ ἀπὸ τῆς γῆς ὑμῶν.
According to the number of the lords of the Philistines, five golden emerods, for the plague was on you, and on your rulers, and on the people; and golden mice, the likeness of the mice that destroy your land: and ye shall give glory to the Lord, that he may lighten his hand from off you, and from off your gods, and from off your land.
6
וְלָמָּה תְכַבְּדוּ אֶת־לְבַבְכֶם כַּאֲשֶׁר כִּבְּדוּ מִצְרַיִם וּפַרְעֹה אֶת־לִבָּם הֲלוֹא כַּאֲשֶׁר הִתְעַלֵּל בָּהֶם ו͏ַיְשַׁלְּחוּם וַיֵּלֵכוּ
Wherefore then do ye harden your hearts, as the Egyptians and Pharaoh hardened their hearts? when He had wrought among them, did they not let the people go, and they departed?
Καὶ ἱνατί βαρύνετε τὰς καρδίας ὑμῶν, ὡς ἐβάρυνεν Αἴγυπτος καὶ Φαραὼ τὴν καρδίαν αὐτῶν; οὐχὶ ὅτε ἐνέπαιξεν αὐτοῖς, ἐξαπέστειλαν αὐτοὺς καὶ ἀπῆλθον;
And why do ye harden your hearts, as Egypt and Pharaoh hardened their hearts? [was it] not [so] when he mocked them, [that] they let the people go, and they departed?
7
וְעַתָּה קְחוּ וַעֲשׂוּ עֲגָלָה חֲדָשָׁה אֶחָת וּשְׁתֵּי פָרוֹת עָלוֹת אֲשֶׁר לֹא־עָלָה עֲלֵיהֶם עֹל וַאֲסַרְתֶּם אֶת־הַפָּרוֹת בָּעֲגָלָה וַהֲשֵׁיבֹתֶם בְּנֵיהֶם מֵאַחֲרֵיהֶם הַבָּיְתָה
Now therefore take and prepare you a new cart, and two milch kine, on which there hath come no yoke, and tie the kine to the cart, and bring their calves home from them.
Καὶ νῦν λάβετε καὶ ποιήσατε ἅμαξαν καινὴν, καὶ δύο βόας πρωτοτοκούσας ἄνευ τῶν τέκνων· καὶ ζεύξατε τὰς βόας ἐν τῇ ἁμάξῃ, καὶ ἀπαγάγετε τὰ τὲκνα ἀπὸ ὄπισθεν αὐτῶν εἰς οἴκον.
And now take wood and make a new wagon, and take two cows, that have calved for the first time, without their calves; and do ye yoke the cows to the wagon, and lead away the calves from behind them home.
8
וּלְקַחְתֶּם אֶת־אֲרוֹן יְהוָה וּנְתַתֶּם אֹתוֹ אֶל־הָעֲגָלָה וְאֵת כְּלֵי הַזָּהָב אֲשֶׁר הֲשֵׁבֹתֶם לוֹ אָשָׁם תָּשִׂימוּ בָאַרְגַּז מִצִּדּוֹ וְשִׁלַּחְתֶּם אֹתוֹ וְהָלָךְ
And take the ark of HaShem, and lay it upon the cart; and put the jewels of gold, which ye return Him for a guilt-offering, in a coffer by the side thereof; and send it away, that it may go.
Καὶ λήψεσθε τὴν κιβωτὸν, καὶ θήσετε αὐτὴν ἐπὶ τὴν ἅμαξαν, καὶ τὰ σκεύη τὰ χρυσᾶ ἀποδώσετε αὐτῇ τῆς βασάνου, καὶ θήσετε ἐν θέματι βερσεχθὰν ἐκ μέρους αὐτῆς· καὶ ἐξαποστελεῖτε αὐτὴν, καὶ ἀπελάσατε αὐτήν, καὶ ἀπελεύσεσθε.
And ye shall take the ark and put it on the wagon; and ye shall restore to it the golden articles for the trespass offering in a coffer by the side of it: and ye shall let it go, and send it away, and ye shall depart.
9
וּרְאִיתֶם אִם־דֶּרֶךְ גְּבוּלוֹ יַעֲלֶה בֵּית שֶׁמֶשׁ הוּא עָשָׂה לָנוּ אֶת־הָרָעָה הַגְּדוֹלָה הַזֹּאת וְאִם־לֹא וְיָדַעְנוּ כִּי לֹא יָדוֹ נָגְעָה בָּנוּ מִקְרֶה הוּא הָיָה לָנוּ
And see, if it goeth up by the way of its own border to Beth-shemesh, then He hath done us this great evil; but if not, then we shall know that it is not His hand that smote us; it was a chance that happened to us.'
Καὶ ὄψεσθε, εἰ ὁδὸν ὁρίων αὐτῆς πορεύσεται μετὰ Βαιθσαμὺς, αὐτὸς πεποίηκεν ἡμῖν τὴν κακίαν τὴν μεγάλην ταύτην· καὶ ἐὰν μὴ, καὶ γνωσόμεθα ὅτι οὐ χεὶρ αὐτοῦ ἧπται ἡμῶν, ἀλλὰ σύμπτωμα τοῦτο γέγονεν ἡμῖν.
And ye shall see, if it shall go the way of its coasts along by Beth-shemesh, he has brought upon us this great affliction; and if not, then shall we know that his hand has not touched us, but this [is a] chance [which] has happened to us.
10
וַיַּעֲשׂוּ הָאֲנָשִׁים כֵּן וַיִּקְחוּ שְׁתֵּי פָרוֹת עָלוֹת וַיַּאַסְרוּם בָּעֲגָלָה וְאֶת־בְּנֵיהֶם כָּלוּ בַבָּיִת
And the men did so; and took two milch kine, and tied them to the cart, and shut up their calves at home.
Καὶ ἐποίησαν οἱ ἀλλόφυλοι οὕτω· καὶ ἔλαβον δύο βόας πρωτοτοκούσας, καὶ ἔζευξαν αὐτὰς ἐν τῇ ἁμάξῃ, καὶ τὰ τέκνα αὐτῶν ἀπεκώλυσαν εἰς οἶκον·
And the Philistines did so; and they took two cows that had calved for the first time, and yoked them to the wagon, and shut up their calves at home.
11
וַיָּשִׂמוּ אֶת־אֲרוֹן יְהוָה אֶל־הָעֲגָלָה וְאֵת הָאַרְגַּז וְאֵת עַכְבְּרֵי הַזָּהָב וְאֵת צַלְמֵי טְחֹרֵיהֶם
And they put the ark of HaShem upon the cart, and the coffer with the mice of gold and the images of their emerods.
Καὶ ἔθεντο τὴν κιβωτὸν Κυρίου ἐπὶ τὴν ἅμαξαν, καὶ τὸ θέμα ἐργὰβ καὶ τοὺς μῦς τοὺς χρυσοῦς.
And they set the ark of the Lord, and the coffer, and the golden mice, on the wagon.
12
וַיִשַּׁרְנָה הַפָּרוֹת בַּדֶּרֶךְ עַל־דֶּרֶךְ בֵּית שֶׁמֶשׁ בִּמְסִלָּה אַחַת הָלְכוּ הָלֹךְ וְגָעוֹ וְלֹא־סָרוּ יָמִין וּשְׂמֹאול וְסַרְנֵי פְלִשְׁתִּים הֹלְכִים אַחֲרֵיהֶם עַד־גְּבוּל בֵּית שָׁמֶשׁ
And the kine took the straight way by the way to Beth-shemesh; they went along the highway, lowing as they went, and turned not aside to the right hand or to the left; and the lords of the Philistines went after them unto the border of Beth-shemesh.
Καὶ κατεύθυναν αἱ βόες ἐν τῇ ὁδῷ εἰς ὁδὸν Βαιθσαμὺς, ἐν τρίβῳ ἐνὶ ἐπορεύοντο καὶ ἐκοπίων, καὶ οὐ μεθίσταντο δεξιὰ οὐδὲ ἀριστερά· καὶ οἱ σατράπαι τῶν ἀλλοφύλων ἐπορεύοντο ὀπίσω αὐτῆς ἕως ὁρίων Βαιθσαμύς.
And the cows went straight on the way to the way of Beth-shemesh, they went along one track; and labored, and turned not aside to the right hand or to the left, and the lords of the Philistines went after it as far as the coasts of Beth-shemesh.
13
וּבֵית שֶׁמֶשׁ קֹצְרִים קְצִיר־חִטִּים בָּעֵמֶק וַיִּשְׂאוּ אֶת־עֵינֵיהֶם וַיִּרְאוּ אֶת־הָאָרוֹן וַיִּשְׂמְחוּ לִרְאוֹת
And they of Beth-shemesh were reaping their wheat harvest in the valley; and they lifted up their eyes, and saw the ark, and rejoiced to see it.
Καὶ οἱ ἐν Βαιθσαμὺς ἐθέριζον θερισμὸν πυρῶν ἐν κοιλάδι· καὶ ᾖραν ὀφθαλμοὺς αὐτῶν, καὶ εἶδον κιβωτὸν Κυρίου, καὶ ηὐφράνθησαν εἰς ἀπάντησιν αὐτῆς.
And the men of Beth-shemesh were reaping the wheat harvest in the valley; and they lifted up their eyes, and saw the ark of the Lord, and rejoiced to meet it.
14
וְהָעֲגָלָה בָּאָה אֶל־שְׂדֵה יְהוֹשֻׁעַ בֵּית־הַשִּׁמְשִׁי וַתַּעֲמֹד שָׁם וְשָׁם אֶבֶן גְּדוֹלָה וַיְבַקְּעוּ אֶת־עֲצֵי הָעֲגָלָה וְאֶת־הַפָּרוֹת הֶעֱלוּ עֹלָה לַיהוָה
And the cart came into the field of Joshua the Beth-shemite, and stood there, where there was a great stone; and they cleaved the wood of the cart, and offered up the kine for a burnt-offering unto HaShem.
Καὶ ἡ ἅμαξα εἰσῆλθεν εἰς ἀγρὸν Ὠσῆὲ τὸν ἐν Βαιθσαμὺς, καὶ ἔστησαν ἐκεῖ παρʼ αὐτῇ λίθον μέγαν· καὶ σχίζουσι τὰ ξύλα τῆς ἁμάξης, καὶ τὰς βόας ἀνήνεγκαν εἰς ὁλοκαύτωσιν τῷ κυρίῳ.
And the wagon entered into the field of Joshua, which was in Beth-shemesh, and they set there by it a great stone; and they split the wood of the wagon, and offered up the cows for a whole burnt offering to the Lord.
15
וְהַלְוִיִּם הוֹרִידוּ אֶת־אֲרוֹן יְהוָה וְאֶת־הָאַרְגַּז אֲשֶׁר־אִתּוֹ אֲשֶׁר־בּוֹ כְלֵי־זָהָב וַיָּשִׂמוּ אֶל־הָאֶבֶן הַגְּדוֹלָה וְאַנְשֵׁי בֵית־שֶׁמֶשׁ הֶעֱלוּ עֹלוֹת ו͏ַיִּזְבְּחוּ זְבָחִים בַּיּוֹם הַהוּא לַיהוָה
And the Levites took down the ark of HaShem, and the coffer that was with it, wherein the jewels of gold were, and put them on the great stone; and the men of Beth-shemesh offered burnt-offerings and sacrificed sacrifices the same day unto HaShem.
Καὶ οἱ Λευῖται ἀνήνεγκαν τὴν κιβωτὸν τοῦ Κυρίου, καὶ τὸ θέμα ἐργὰβ μετʼ αὐτῆς, καὶ τὰ ἐπʼ αὐτῆς σκεύη τὰ χρυσᾶ, καὶ ἔθεντο ἐπὶ τοῦ λίθου τοῦ μεγάλου· καὶ οἱ ἄνδρες Βαιθσαμὺς ἀνήνεγκαν ὁλοκαυτώσεις καὶ θυσίας ἐν τῇ ἡμέρᾳ ἐκείνῃ τῷ Κυρίῳ.
And the Levites brought up the ark of the Lord, and the coffer with it, and the golden articles upon it, and placed them on the great stone, and the men of Beth-shemesh offered whole burnt offerings and meat offerings on that day to the Lord.
16
וַחֲמִשָּׁה סַרְנֵי־פְלִשְׁתִּים רָאוּ וַיָּשֻׁבוּ עֶקְרוֹן בַּיּוֹם הַהוּא
And when the five lords of the Philistines had seen it, they returned to Ekron the same day.
Καὶ οἱ πέντε σατράπαι τῶν ἀλλοφύλων ἑώρων, καὶ ἀνέστρεψαν εἰς Ἀσκάλωνα τῇ ἡμέρᾳ ἐκείνῃ.
And the five lords of the Philistines saw, and returned to Ashkelon in that day.
17
וְאֵלֶּה טְחֹרֵי הַזָּהָב אֲשֶׁר הֵשִׁיבוּ פְלִשְׁתִּים אָשָׁם לַיהוָה לְאַשְׁדּוֹד אֶחָד לְעַזָּה אֶחָד לְאַשְׁקְלוֹן אֶחָד לְגַת אֶחָד לְעֶקְרוֹן אֶחָד
And these are the golden emerods which the Philistines returned for a guilt-offering unto HaShem: for Ashdod one, for Gaza one, for Ashkelon one, for Gath one, for Ekron one;
Καὶ αὗται αἱ ἕδραι αἱ χρυσαῖ, ἃς ἀπέδωκαν οἱ ἀλλόφυλοι τῆς βασάνου τῷ Κυρίῳ· τῆς Ἀζώτου μίαν, τῆς Γάζης μίαν, τῆς Ἀσκάλωνος μίαν, τῆς Γὲθ μίαν, τῆς Ἀκκαρὼν μίαν.
And these [are] the golden emerods which the lords of the Philistines gave as a trespass offering to the Lord; for Ashdod one, for Gaza one, for Ashkelon one, for Gath one, for Ekron one.
18
וְעַכְבְּרֵי הַזָּהָב מִסְפַּר כָּל־עָרֵי פְלִשְׁתִּים לַחֲמֵשֶׁת הַסְּרָנִים מֵעִיר מִבְצָר וְעַד כֹּפֶר הַפְּרָזִי וְעַד אָבֵל הַגְּדוֹלָה אֲשֶׁר הִנִּיחוּ עָלֶיהָ אֵת אֲרוֹן יְהוָה עַד הַיּוֹם הַזֶּה בִּשְׂדֵה יְהוֹשֻׁעַ בֵּית־הַשִּׁמְשִׁי
and the golden mice, according to the number of all the cities of the Philistines belonging to the five lords, both of fortified cities and of country villages, even unto Abel by the great stone, whereon they set down the ark of HaShem, which stone remaineth unto this day in the field of Joshua the Beth-shemite.
Καὶ μῦς οἱ χρυσοῖ κατʼ ἀριθμὸν πασῶν πόλεων τῶν ἀλλοφύλων τῶν πέντε σατραπῶν ἐκ πόλεως ἐστερεωμένης καὶ ἕως κώμης τοῦ Φερεζαίου, καὶ ἕως λίθου τοῦ μεγάλου, οὗ ἐπέθηκαν ἐπʼ αὐτοῦ τὴν κιβωτὸν διαθήκης Κυρίου, τοῦ ἐν ἀγρῷ Ὠσηὲ τοῦ Βαιθσαμυσίτου.
And the golden mice according to the number of all the cities of the Philistines, belonging to the five lords, from the fenced city to the village of the Perizzite, and to the great stone, on which they placed the ark of the covenant of the Lord, that was in the field of Joshua the Beth-shemeshite.
19
וַיַּךְ בְּאַנְשֵׁי בֵית־שֶׁמֶשׁ כִּי רָאוּ בַּאֲרוֹן יְהוָה וַיַּךְ בָּעָם שִׁבְעִים אִישׁ חֲמִשִּׁים אֶלֶף אִישׁ וַיִּתְאַבְּלוּ הָעָם כִּי־הִכָּה יְהוָה בָּעָם מַכָּה גְדוֹלָה
And He smote of the men of Beth-shemesh, because they had gazed upon the ark of HaShem, even He smote of the people seventy men, and fifty thousand men; and the people mourned, because HaShem had smitten the people with a great slaughter.
Καὶ οὐκ ἠσμένισαν οἱ υἱοὶ Ἰεχονίου ἐν τοῖς ἀνδράσι Βαιθσαμὺς, ὅτι εἶδαν κιβωτὸν Κυρίου· καὶ ἐπάταξεν ἐν αὐτοῖς ἑβδομήκοντα ἄνδρας, καὶ πεντήκοντα χιλιάδας ἀνδρῶν· καὶ ἐπένθησεν ὁ λαός, ὅτι ἐπάταξε Κύριος ἐν τῷ λαῷ πληγὴν μεγάλην σφόδρα.
And the sons of Jechonias were not pleased with the men of Beth-shemesh, because they saw the ark of the Lord; and [the Lord] smote among them seventy men, and fifty thousand men: and the people mourned, because the Lord had inflicted on the people a very great plague.
20
וַיֹּאמְרוּ אַנְשֵׁי בֵית־שֶׁמֶשׁ מִי יוּכַל לַעֲמֹד לִפְנֵי יְהוָה הָאֱלֹהִים הַקָּדוֹשׁ הַזֶּה וְאֶל־מִי יַעֲלֶה מֵעָלֵינוּ
And the men of Beth-shemesh said: 'Who is able to stand before HaShem, this holy G-d? and to whom shall it go up from us?'
Καὶ εἶπαν οἱ ἄνδρες οἱ ἐκ Βαιθσαμὺς, τίς δυνήσεται διελθεῖν ἐνώπιον Κυρίου τοῦ Θεοῦ τοῦ ἁγίου τούτου; καὶ πρὸς τίνα ἀναβήσεται κιβωτὸς Κυρίου ἀφʼ ἡμῶν;
And the men of Beth-shemesh said, Who shall be able to pass before this holy Lord God? and to whom shall the ark of the Lord go up from us?
21
וַיִּשְׁלְחוּ מַלְאָכִים אֶל־יוֹשְׁבֵי קִרְיַת־יְעָרִים לֵאמֹר הֵשִׁבוּ פְלִשְׁתִּים אֶת־אֲרוֹן יְהוָה רְדוּ הַעֲלוּ אֹתוֹ אֲלֵיכֶם
And they sent messengers to the inhabitants of Kiriath-jearim, saying: 'The Philistines have brought back the ark of HaShem; come ye down, and fetch it up to you.'
Καὶ ἀποστέλλουσιν ἀγγέλους πρὸς τοὺς κατοικοῦντας Καριαθιαρεὶμ, λέγοντες, ἀπεστρόφασιν ἀλλόφυλοι τὴν κιβωτὸν Κυρίου, κατάβητε καὶ ἀναγάγετε αὐτὴν πρὸς ἑαυτούς.
And they send messengers to the inhabitants of Kiriath-jearim, saying, The Philistines have brought back the ark of the Lord, go down and take it home to yourselves.

How it works

A parallel reader for the Hebrew Bible and its oldest witnesses: the Masoretic text, the Samaritan Pentateuch, the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Septuagint, each with an English translation where one is available.

Reading a chapter

Choose a book and chapter at the top, or type a reference into Go to (Isa 53:11, 1 Sam 3, sam 3:4, ii kgs 2, ben sira 51). Book names can be abbreviated; a name shared by numbered books (sam, kings, chr, macc) opens the first of them unless you add the number. The arrow keys move between chapters, and the address bar keeps a link to the verse you clicked, so you can bookmark or share a place.

Each row is one verse. Rows follow the Masoretic verse numbering, so the Hebrew, JPS and Samaritan columns line up exactly. The Septuagint is numbered differently in many places (Psalms, Jeremiah, Exodus 35–40, parts of Kings, Proverbs, Daniel, and dozens of chapter boundaries). Its verses are placed against their Masoretic counterparts, and a small tag such as 50:3 shows the Septuagint's own number when it differs. Greek verses that have no Masoretic counterpart (for example the Prayer of Azariah in Daniel 3) appear in reading order as separate rows marked LXX.

Columns

The chips at the top switch columns on and off. Drag a chip (or a column heading) to reorder; with a chip focused, the ← → keys move it. Your choice is remembered. The Samaritan columns appear only in Genesis–Deuteronomy; the scrolls column appears wherever a manuscript survives, including Ben Sira. Columns marked † are licensed for non-commercial use only.

Words: lexicon and concordance

Hover over any Hebrew word (Masoretic, Samaritan or scroll) or any Greek word to see its dictionary form, Strong's number, a short gloss and its grammar. Click the word to open the concordance on the right: the full lexicon entry, then every occurrence, grouped by book — for Hebrew, separately for the Masoretic text, the Samaritan Pentateuch and the scrolls (with the manuscript named). Click a reference to go there; every form of the word in the chapter is highlighted. You can also type a word or a Strong's number into Lexicon at the top.

In the Masoretic text, a Ketiv (the written form, unpointed) is shown in grey immediately before its Qere (the form read aloud); both carry the Qere's dictionary entry.

Variants

The Samaritan Pentateuch and every scroll are compared word by word with the Masoretic text of the same verse:

In the scrolls, letters in brackets are a modern editor's reconstruction and are never counted as variants; letters with a dotted overline are uncertain; ◦ is a trace of an unreadable letter. Manuscripts written in paleo-Hebrew script, and divine names that square-script scrolls write in paleo-Hebrew, are shown in paleo-Hebrew letters (switchable under Display). Hover a manuscript to see its edition. Display → Dead Sea Scrolls can hide the manuscripts that agree with the Masoretic text, or strip the reconstructions to show only what survives.

The comparison is automatic. It aligns words by spelling, so a transposition or a long rewritten passage can be marked imperfectly, and the spelling rule cannot tell a suffix from a vowel letter. Treat the colours as a finding aid and check a critical edition before building an argument on a reading.

Books outside the Hebrew Bible

Besides the Septuagint-only books, the book list has 1 Enoch and Jubilees (“Other ancient books”), shown in R. H. Charles's English with the Qumran copies beside them, and Psalms has a chapter 151. Their scroll copies — like those of Tobit and Ben Sira — have no verse numbers in the data: each fragment is placed by its published identification, and its lines are spread over those verses, so treat the exact verse boundaries as approximate. Aramaic copies (Tobit 4Q196–199 and all of Enoch) are marked “Aramaic” and have no word lookups.

Rabbinic citations

The small ❝ under a verse number opens the passages of rabbinic literature that cite that verse — Mishnah, Tosefta, both Talmuds, Midrash, Targum and Kabbalah (and, if you tick the box, later halakhah, liturgy and thought) — fetched live from Sefaria, so it needs an internet connection. Each passage is listed with Sefaria's date for the work it comes from and a link to read it there. Sefaria's links include allusions and discussions as well as quotations; those it classes as quotations are marked. It works for the Hebrew Bible, Ben Sira (by Kahana's numbering, e.g. the Talmud's quotations of Ben Sira), Tobit and Jubilees. For 1 Enoch, which the rabbis do not quote, it lists instead the Zohar's passages about a “Book of Enoch”.

How the Septuagint is aligned

Each Greek verse is placed by combining three things: the standard table of Septuagint–Masoretic verse correspondences (SIL's lxx.vrs), the table of Masoretic–English numbering differences, and a comparison of the English of Brenton's Septuagint with the JPS English, which confirms each pairing and catches displaced verses. Where no Masoretic verse is similar enough, the Greek verse stands on its own row.

The Greek word data

No openly licensed word-by-word analysis of Brenton's Greek exists, so each Greek word is matched to the most frequent analysis of the same form in the openly licensed Swete Septuagint (Morpheus parser), then to a lexicon entry. About 95% of words are identified. Parses of ambiguous forms (e.g. αὐτοῦ, τοῦ) can be wrong; the card says "automatic parse" as a reminder.

About the texts

What each column is, where it comes from, and what to keep in mind when reading it.

Masoretic Text — Westminster Leningrad Codex

The Masoretic text is the Hebrew Bible as transmitted by the Masoretes, scribal scholars active in Tiberias and elsewhere roughly from the 7th to the 10th century, who fixed its vowel points, accents and marginal notes (the Masorah) around a consonantal text that was already essentially stable by the 1st–2nd century CE. The Leningrad Codex (St Petersburg, Firkovich I B 19 A), copied in 1008/1009 CE in the Ben Asher tradition, is the oldest complete manuscript of the Hebrew Bible; the slightly older Aleppo Codex lost most of the Torah in 1947. It is the base of the standard critical editions (BHK, BHS, BHQ).

The Westminster Leningrad Codex is the public-domain digital transcription of it maintained by the J. Alan Groves Center at Westminster Theological Seminary. In this edition a Ketiv appears as its own unpointed word before the pointed Qere.

JPS 1917 — The Holy Scriptures according to the Masoretic Text

The first English Bible translation produced by a committee of Jewish scholars for the Jewish Publication Society of America, under Max L. Margolis as editor-in-chief, published in 1917. Its language deliberately follows the cadence of the King James and Revised Versions, but its renderings follow the Masoretic text and Jewish exegetical tradition, and it keeps the Hebrew chapter and verse numbering. It is in the public domain; its successor, the New JPS (Tanakh, 1985), is not. The electronic edition used here writes the divine names as “HaShem” and “G-d”.

Septuagint — Brenton's Greek text and the Updated Brenton English

The Septuagint is the Jewish translation of the Hebrew scriptures into Greek. The Torah was translated in Alexandria in the 3rd century BCE (the Letter of Aristeas tells the legend of 72 translators under Ptolemy II); the other books followed over the next two centuries. Because it was made from Hebrew manuscripts older than the Masoretic text, it often preserves a different Hebrew text: Jeremiah is about one-seventh shorter and differently ordered (a shorter Hebrew text of this type survives at Qumran in 4QJerb,d), Job is about one-sixth shorter, and Esther and Daniel have long additions. It was the Bible of Philo, Josephus and the New Testament writers, and became the Old Testament of the Greek church, which in turn led Jewish translators (Aquila, Symmachus, Theodotion) to produce closer revisions.

Sir Lancelot C. L. Brenton published an English translation in 1844 and a Greek–English edition in 1851. His Greek is essentially the Sixtine (Roman) edition of 1587, which follows the 4th-century Codex Vaticanus. It is older and less critical than the modern editions of Rahlfs (1935) and Göttingen, which are under copyright. The English column is the Updated Brenton (Adam Boyd, 2020), Brenton's translation with modernised spelling and wording, dedicated to the public domain.

Samaritan Pentateuch †

The Torah as preserved by the Samaritan community of Mount Gerizim (Nablus), written in the Samaritan script, a descendant of the paleo-Hebrew alphabet. It differs from the Masoretic text in about 6,000 places, most of them spelling or grammar; in about 1,900 of them it agrees with the Septuagint. Some readings are distinctively Samaritan, above all the commandment to build an altar on Mount Gerizim added after the Ten Commandments (Exod 20:17; Deut 5:21) and “Gerizim” for “Ebal” in Deut 27:4. Many others — harmonising expansions that copy one passage into its parallel — are shared with “pre-Samaritan” Qumran manuscripts such as 4QpaleoExodm and 4QNumb, showing that the text type is older than the Samaritan schism.

European scholars learned of it in 1616, when Pietro della Valle brought a manuscript from Damascus; it was printed in the Paris (1645) and London (1657) Polyglots, collated by Benjamin Kennicott (1776–80) and edited critically by August von Gall (1914–18). The Hebrew here is Aleksandr Sigalov's digital text, based on Kennicott and checked against von Gall; the English is Sigalov's adaptation of the King James Version to the Samaritan readings. For modern scholarship see Abraham Tal's edition of MS Shechem 6 and Stefan Schorch's critical editio maior.

Dead Sea Scrolls and other Judean Desert manuscripts †

Between 1947 and 1956 the remains of about 950 manuscripts were found in eleven caves near Khirbet Qumran. Some 230 are biblical — every book of the Hebrew Bible except Esther is represented, from tiny fragments to the complete Great Isaiah Scroll (1QIsaa) — dating from about 250 BCE to 68 CE. They are a thousand years older than the Leningrad Codex. Most are close to the ancestor of the Masoretic text (“proto-Masoretic”), but others agree with the Septuagint (4QJerb, 4QSama in places), with the Samaritan text type, or with neither — evidence that several forms of the text circulated side by side before the Masoretic text prevailed.

Manuscripts from other sites fill out the picture: Masada (before its fall in 73/74 CE; excavated by Yigael Yadin, 1963–65) and the Bar Kokhba refuges of Wadi Murabba'at and Naḥal Ḥever (132–135 CE), whose biblical texts are already virtually identical with the Masoretic text, as well as Naḥal Ṣe'elim, Wadi Sdeir and Naḥal Arugot. The official publication is the Discoveries in the Judaean Desert series (Oxford, 1955–2010).

The transcriptions here are those of Martin G. Abegg Jr., James E. Bowley and Edward M. Cook, as converted by the Eep Talstra Centre for Bible and Computer (ETCBC). Each manuscript is labelled with its siglum (e.g. 4QIsad), its DJD number, its find-site and the column or fragment and line. Besides the biblical manuscripts, the copies of Ben Sira, Tobit, 1 Enoch, Jubilees and Psalm 151 are shown under those books. Not every manuscript is in the dataset — notably the Greek scrolls (such as the Greek Minor Prophets from Naḥal Ḥever) are absent, and the Masada Ben Sira scroll is added separately (see Ben Sira).

Ben Sira

The Wisdom of Yeshua ben Eleazar ben Sira, composed in Hebrew in Jerusalem around 190–180 BCE and translated into Greek by his grandson in Egypt after 132 BCE (his prologue explains the difficulty of rendering Hebrew into Greek). It belongs to the Septuagint and to the Catholic and Orthodox canons (Latin Ecclesiasticus) but not to the Jewish one, although the Talmud and midrash quote it. Its Hebrew text was lost to the West until 1896, when Solomon Schechter, Agnes Lewis and Margaret Gibson identified medieval copies in the Cairo Genizah; ancient Hebrew copies then emerged at Qumran and Masada.

About two-thirds of the Hebrew is now known, from six medieval Genizah manuscripts (A–F, 10th–12th century) and three ancient ones: 2QSir (2Q18; Sir 6:14–15, 20–32), the acrostic of Sir 51:13–20, 30 in the Psalms Scroll 11QPsa (columns 21–22), and the Masada scroll (Mas1h), found by Yigael Yadin in 1964 in a casemate room of the fortress and published in 1965: seven columns with Sir 39:27–44:17, copied in the early 1st century BCE, little more than a century after the author. Its agreement with Genizah manuscript B showed that the medieval copies descend from the ancient Hebrew rather than from a translation back from Greek or Syriac.

Here the book is shown in Brenton's Greek and English. The Hebrew column is the Kahana edition, as transcribed on Hebrew Wikisource and distributed by Sefaria (CC BY-SA): a running text built on the Genizah manuscripts, in which words in [brackets] are Kahana's restorations; chapters with no surviving Hebrew are empty. Kahana numbers the verses in the Hebrew order — in the Greek, two blocks of chapters 30–36 are transposed — so his verses have been matched to Brenton's by content for this site, with his own number shown as “Heb.” where it differs. The scrolls column has the three ancient witnesses; the Masada text is Eric Reymond's transcription from bensira.org. Their placement was made for this site by matching the text; there is no Masoretic text to compare them with, so no variants are marked.

Psalm 151

The Septuagint Psalter ends with a short psalm “outside the number”, in which David recalls tending his father's sheep, his anointing and his victory over Goliath. It belongs to the Greek, Syriac and Ethiopic Bibles but not to the Hebrew one, and was long thought to have been composed in Greek — until the Psalms Scroll from Qumran Cave 11 (11QPsa, published by James Sanders in 1965) turned out to contain a longer Hebrew original in its 28th column, as two poems (151A on David's music and anointing, 151B, broken off, on Goliath). The Greek is a condensed translation of them. The psalm is shown as chapter 151 of Psalms, with the scroll's lines under the Greek verses they correspond to.

Tobit

A Jewish novella of the Eastern diaspora (probably 3rd–2nd century BCE): the pious exile Tobit, blinded in Nineveh, sends his son Tobias to recover money in Media, guided by the angel Raphael in disguise; on the way Tobias marries Sarah and drives off the demon Asmodeus. It is in the Septuagint and the Catholic and Orthodox canons. It survives in two Greek forms — a shorter one (Codices Vaticanus and Alexandrinus, printed by Brenton) and a longer one (Codex Sinaiticus) — and the Qumran copies, four in Aramaic (4Q196–199) and one in Hebrew (4Q200), published by Joseph Fitzmyer in 1995, side with the longer form, which is now generally taken as nearer the original. Their verse placement here follows Fitzmyer's identifications.

1 Enoch

A collection of five works ascribed to Enoch, the seventh from Adam who “walked with God” (Gen 5:24): the Book of the Watchers (ch. 1–36, 3rd century BCE), on the angels who descended to the daughters of men; the Parables (37–71); the Astronomical Book (72–82); the Dream Visions (83–90), with the “Animal Apocalypse” of Israel's history; and the Epistle of Enoch (91–108). It is quoted in the Letter of Jude (1:14–15) and is canonical in the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, whose Ge'ez version is the only complete text; Greek survives for about a third. Józef Milik published the Aramaic fragments from Qumran Cave 4 in 1976: eleven copies, covering every part except the Parables, the oldest from around 200 BCE. The English is R. H. Charles's 1917 translation from the Ethiopic (public domain). The Astronomical scrolls (4Q208–211) contain a much longer calendar than the Ethiopic; only their few passages that match chapters 76–82 are placed.

Jubilees

A retelling of Genesis and Exodus 1–14 as revealed to Moses on Sinai by an “angel of the presence”, dated by a calendar of 49-year jubilees and a 364-day solar year (mid-2nd century BCE). Like 1 Enoch it is canonical only in the Ethiopian church, whose Ge'ez version is the only complete text; parts survive in Latin, Syriac and Greek quotations. Fragments of about fifteen Hebrew copies were found at Qumran, more than of most biblical books, and are published in DJD 13 (VanderKam and Milik, 1994) and DJD 23. The English is R. H. Charles's 1917 translation (public domain).

Lexicon and concordance data

Hebrew words carry the analysis of STEPBible's Translators Amalgamated Hebrew OT (Tyndale House, Cambridge): extended Strong's numbers — James Strong's 1890 numbering, subdivided to follow the Brown–Driver–Briggs lexicon (1906) — with morphology from the ETCBC and an abridged BDB for definitions. Samaritan and scroll words take the analysis of the Masoretic word they correspond to, or, where they differ, of the same written form elsewhere in the Masoretic text. Greek words are matched through the Swete Septuagint and the Morpheus parser to STEPBible's Greek lexicon, which draws on Abbott-Smith (1922) and Liddell–Scott–Jones.

† Licensed for non-commercial use only. Full credits and licences: Credits and licences.