Textorah

II Chronicles 10

1
וַיֵּלֶךְ רְחַבְעָם שְׁכֶמָה כִּי שְׁכֶם בָּאוּ כָל־יִשְׂרָאֵל לְהַמְלִיךְ אֹתוֹ
And Rehoboam went to Shechem; for all Israel were come to Shechem to make him king.
Καὶ ἦλθε Ῥοβοὰμ εἰς Συχὲμ, ὅτι εἰς Συχὲμ ἤρχετο πᾶς Ἰσραὴλ βασιλεῦσαι αὐτόν.
And Rehoboam came to Shechem: for all Israel came to Shechem to make him king.
2
וַיְהִי כִּשְׁמֹעַ יָרָבְעָם בֶּן־נְבָט וְהוּא בְמִצְרַיִם אֲשֶׁר בָּרַח מִפְּנֵי שְׁלֹמֹה הַמֶּלֶךְ וַיָּשָׁב יָרָבְעָם מִמִּצְרָיִם
And it came to pass, when Jeroboam the son of Nebat heard of it--for he was in Egypt, whither he had fled from the presence of king Solomon--that Jeroboam returned out of Egypt.
Καὶ ἐγένετο ὡς ἤκουσεν Ἱεροβοὰμ υἱὸς Ναβὰτ, καὶ αὐτὸς ἐν Αἰγύπτῳ, ὡς ἔφυγεν ἀπὸ προσώπου Σαλωμὼν τοῦ βασιλέως, καὶ κατῴκησεν Ἱεροβοὰμ ἐν Αἰγύπτῳ, καὶ ἀπέστρεψεν Ἱεροβοὰμ ἐξ Αἰγύπτου.
And it came to pass when Jeroboam the son of Nebat heard [it] (now he was in Egypt, forasmuch as he had fled thither from the face of King Solomon, and Jeroboam dwelt in Egypt), that Jeroboam returned out of Egypt.
3
וַיִּשְׁלְחוּ וַיִּקְרְאוּ־לוֹ וַיָּבֹא יָרָבְעָם וְכָל־יִשְׂרָאֵל וַיְדַבְּרוּ אֶל־רְחַבְעָם לֵאמֹר
And they sent and called him; and Jeroboam and all Israel came, and they spoke to Rehoboam, saying:
Καὶ ἀπέστειλαν καὶ ἐκάλεσαν αὐτόν· καὶ ἦλθεν Ἱεροβοὰμ καὶ πᾶσα ἡ ἐκκλησία πρὸς Ῥοβοὰμ, λέγοντες,
And they sent and called him: and Jeroboam and all the congregation came to Rehoboam, saying,
4
אָבִיךָ הִקְשָׁה אֶת־עֻלֵּנוּ וְעַתָּה הָקֵל מֵעֲבֹדַת אָבִיךָ הַקָּשָׁה וּמֵעֻלּוֹ הַכָּבֵד אֲשֶׁר־נָתַן עָלֵינוּ וְנַעַבְדֶךָּ
'Thy father made our yoke grievous; now therefore make thou the grievous service of thy father, and his heavy yoke which he put upon us, lighter, and we will serve thee.'
ὁ πατήρ σου ἐσκλήρυνε τὸν ζυγὸν ἡμῶν, καὶ νῦν ἄφες ἀπὸ τῆς δουλείας τοῦ πατρός σου τῆς σκληρᾶς, καὶ ἀπὸ τοῦ ζυγοῦ αὐτοῦ τοῦ βαρέος, οὗ ἔδωκεν ἐφʼ ἡμᾶς, καὶ δουλεύσομέν σοι.
Thy father made our yoke grievous: now then abate [somewhat] of thy father’s grievous rule, and of his heavy yoke which he put upon us, and we will serve thee.
5
וַיֹּאמֶר אֲלֵהֶם עוֹד שְׁלֹשֶׁת יָמִים וְשׁוּבוּ אֵלָי וַיֵּלֶךְ הָעָם
And he said unto them: 'Come again unto me after three days.' And the people departed.
Καὶ εἶπεν αὐτοῖς, πορεύεσθε ἕως τριῶν ἡμερῶν, καὶ ἔρχεσθε πρὸς μέ· καὶ ἀπῆλθεν ὁ λαός.
And he said to them, Go away for three days, and [then] come to me. So the people departed.
6
וַיִּוָּעַץ הַמֶּלֶךְ רְחַבְעָם אֶת־הַזְּקֵנִים אֲשֶׁר־הָיוּ עֹמְדִים לִפְנֵי שְׁלֹמֹה אָבִיו בִּהְיֹתוֹ חַי לֵאמֹר אֵיךְ אַתֶּם נוֹעָצִים לְהָשִׁיב לָעָם־הַזֶּה דָּבָר
And king Rehoboam took counsel with the old men, that had stood before Solomon his father while he yet lived, saying: 'What counsel give ye me to return answer to this people?'
Καὶ συνήγαγεν ὁ βασιλεὺς Ῥοβοὰμ τοὺς πρεσβυτέρους τοὺς ἑστηκότας ἐναντίον τοῦ Σαλωμὼν τοῦ πατρὸς αὐτοῦ ἐν τῷ ζῇν αὐτὸν, λέγων, πῶς ὑμεῖς βουλεύεσθε τοῦ ἀποκριθῆναι τῷ λαῷ τούτῳ λόγον;
And King Rehoboam assembled the elders that stood before his father Solomon in his lifetime, saying, How do ye counsel [me] to return an answer to this people?
7
וַיְדַבְּרוּ אֵלָיו לֵאמֹר אִם־תִּהְיֶה לְטוֹב לְהָעָם הַזֶּה וּרְצִיתָם וְדִבַּרְתָּ אֲלֵהֶם דְּבָרִים טוֹבִים וְהָיוּ לְךָ עֲבָדִים כָּל־הַיָּמִים
And they spoke unto him, saying: 'If thou be kind to this people, and please them, and speak good words to them, then they will be thy servants for ever.'
Καὶ ἐλάλησαν αὐτῷ, λέγοντες, ἐὰν ἐν τῇ σήμερον γένῃ εἰς ἀγαθὸν τῷ λαῷ τούτῳ, καὶ εὐδοκήσῃς, καὶ λαλήσῃς αὐτοῖς λόγους ἀγαθοὺς, καὶ ἔσονταί σοι παῖδες πάσας τὰς ἡμέρας.
And they spoke to him, saying, If thou wouldest this day befriend this people, and be kind to them, and speak to them good words, then will they be thy servants forever.
8
וַיַּעֲזֹב אֶת־עֲצַת הַזְּקֵנִים אֲשֶׁר יְעָצֻהוּ וַיִּוָּעַץ אֶת־הַיְלָדִים אֲשֶׁר גָּדְלוּ אִתּוֹ הָעֹמְדִים לְפָנָיו
But he forsook the counsel of the old men which they had given him, and took counsel with the young men that were grown up with him, that stood before him.
Καὶ κατέλιπε τὴν βουλὴν τῶν πρεσβυτέρων, οἳ συνεβουλεύσαντο αὐτῷ· καὶ συνεβουλεύσατο μετὰ τῶν παιδαρίων τῶν συνεκτραφέντων μετʼ αὐτοῦ τῶν ἑστηκότων ἐναντίον αὐτοῦ.
But he forsook the advice of the old men, who took counsel with him, and he took counsel with the young men who had been brought up with him, who stood before him.
9
וַיֹּאמֶר אֲלֵהֶם מָה אַתֶּם נוֹעָצִים וְנָשִׁיב דָּבָר אֶת־הָעָם הַזֶּה אֲשֶׁר דִּבְּרוּ אֵלַי לֵאמֹר הָקֵל מִן־הָעֹל אֲשֶׁר־נָתַן אָבִיךָ עָלֵינוּ
And he said unto them: 'What counsel give ye, that we may return answer to this people, who have spoken to me, saying: Make the yoke that thy father did put upon us lighter?'
Καὶ εἶπεν αὐτοῖς, τί ὑμεῖς βουλεύεσθε, καὶ ἀποκριθήσομαι λόγον τῷ λαῷ τούτῳ, οἳ ἐλάλησαν πρὸς μὲ, λέγοντες, ἄνες ἀπὸ τοῦ ζυγοῦ οὗ ἔδωκεν ὁ πατήρ σου ἐφʼ ἡμᾶς;
And he said to them, What do ye advise that I should answer this people, who spoke to me, saying, Ease [somewhat] of the yoke which thy father laid upon us?
10
וַיְדַבְּרוּ אִתּוֹ הַיְלָדִים אֲשֶׁר גָּדְלוּ אִתּוֹ לֵאמֹר כֹּה־תֹאמַר לָעָם אֲשֶׁר־דִּבְּרוּ אֵלֶיךָ לֵאמֹר אָבִיךָ הִכְבִּיד אֶת־עֻלֵּנוּ וְאַתָּה הָקֵל מֵעָלֵינוּ כֹּה תֹּאמַר אֲלֵהֶם קָטָנִּי עָבָה מִמָּתְנֵי אָבִי
And the young men that were grown up with him spoke unto him, saying: 'Thus shalt thou say unto the people that spoke unto thee, saying: Thy father made our yoke heavy, but make thou it lighter unto us; thus shalt thou say unto them: My little finger is thicker than my father's loins.
Καὶ ἐλάλησαν αὐτῷ τὰ παιδάρια τὰ ἐκτραφέντα μετʼ αὐτοῦ, λέγοντες, οὕτως λαλήσεις τῷ λαῷ τῷ λαλήσαντι πρὸς σὲ, λέγων, ὁ πατήρ σου ἐβάρυνε τὸν ζυγὸν ἡμῶν, καὶ σὺ ἄφες ἀφʼ ἡμῶν· οὕτως ἐρεῖς, ὁ μικρὸς δάκτυλός μου παχύτερος τῆς ὀσφύος τοῦ πατρός μου.
And the young men that had been brought up with him spoke to him, saying, Thus shalt thou speak to the people that spoke to thee, saying, Thy father made our yoke heavy, and do thou lighten [somewhat of it] from us; thus shalt thou say, My little finger [shall be] thicker than my father’s loins.
11
וְעַתָּה אָבִי הֶעְמִיס עֲלֵיכֶם עֹל כָּבֵד וַאֲנִי אֹסִיף עַל־עֻלְּכֶם אָבִי יִסַּר אֶתְכֶם בַּשּׁוֹטִים וַאֲנִי בָּעֲקְרַבִּים
And now whereas my father did lade you with a heavy yoke, I will add to your yoke; my father chastised you with whips, but I will chastise you with scorpions.'
Καὶ νῦν ὁ πατήρ μου ἐπαίδευσεν ὑμᾶς ζυγῷ βαρεῖ, κᾀγὼ προσθήσω ἐπὶ τὸν ζυγὸν ὑμῶν· ὁ πατήρ μου ἐπαίδευσεν ὑμᾶς ἐν μάστιξι, κᾀγὼ παιδεύσω ὑμᾶς ἐν σκορπίοις.
And whereas my father chastised you with a heavy yoke, I will also add to your yoke: my father chastised you with whips, and I will chastise you with scorpions.
12
וַיָּבֹא יָרָבְעָם וְכָל־הָעָם אֶל־רְחַבְעָם בַּיּוֹם הַשְּׁלִשִׁי כַּאֲשֶׁר דִּבֶּר הַמֶּלֶךְ לֵאמֹר שׁוּבוּ אֵלַי בַּיּוֹם הַשְּׁלִשִׁי
So Jeroboam and all the people came to Rehoboam the third day, as the king bade, saying: 'Come to me again the third day.'
Καὶ ἦλθεν Ἱεροβοὰμ καὶ πᾶς ὁ λαὸς πρὸς Ῥοβοὰμ τῇ ἡμέρᾳ τῇ τρίτῃ, ὡς ἐλάλησεν ὁ βασιλεὺς, λέγων, ἐπιστρέψατε πρὸς μὲ ἐν τῇ ἡμέρᾳ τῇ τρίτῃ.
And Jeroboam and all the people came to Rehoboam on the third day, as the king had spoken, saying, Return to me on the third day.
13
וַיַּעֲנֵם הַמֶּלֶךְ קָשָׁה וַיַּעֲזֹב הַמֶּלֶךְ רְחַבְעָם אֵת עֲצַת הַזְּקֵנִים
And the king answered them roughly; and king Rehoboam forsook the counsel of the old men,
Καὶ ἀπεκρίθη ὁ βασιλεὺς σκληρὰ, καὶ ἐγκατέλιπεν ὁ βασιλεὺς Ῥοβοὰμ τὴν βουλὴν τῶν πρεσβυτέρων,
And the king answered harshly; and King Rehoboam forsook the counsel of the old men,
14
וַיְדַבֵּר אֲלֵהֶם כַּעֲצַת הַיְלָדִים לֵאמֹר אַכְבִּיד אֶת־עֻלְּכֶם וַאֲנִי אֹסִיף עָלָיו אָבִי יִסַּר אֶתְכֶם בַּשּׁוֹטִים וַאֲנִי בָּעֲקְרַבִּים
and spoke to them after the counsel of the young men, saying: 'My father made your yoke heavy, but I will add thereto; my father chastised you with whips, but I will chastise you with scorpions.'
καὶ ἐλάλησε πρὸς αὐτοὺς κατὰ τὴν βουλὴν τῶν νεωτέρων, λέγων, ὁ πατήρ μου ἐβάρυνε τὸν ζυγὸν ὑμῶν, καὶ ἐγὼ προσθήσω ἐπʼ αὐτόν· ὁ πατήρ μου ἐπαίδευσεν ὑμᾶς ἐν μάστιξι, καὶ ἐγὼ παιδεύσω ὑμᾶς ἐν σκορπίοις.
and spoke to them according to the counsel of the young men, saying, My father made your yoke heavy, but I will add to it: my father chastised you with whips, but I will chastise you with scorpions.
15
וְלֹא־שָׁמַע הַמֶּלֶךְ אֶל־הָעָם כִּי־הָיְתָה נְסִבָּה מֵעִם ה͏ָאֱלֹהִים לְמַעַן הָקִים יְהוָה אֶת־דְּבָרוֹ אֲשֶׁר דִּבֶּר בְּיַד אֲחִיָּהוּ הַשִּׁלוֹנִי אֶל־יָרָבְעָם בֶּן־נְבָט
So the king hearkened not unto the people; for it was brought about of G-d, that HaShem might establish His word, which He spoke by the hand of Ahijah the Shilonite to Jeroboam the son of Nebat.
Καὶ οὐκ ἤκουσεν ὁ βασιλεὺς τοῦ λαοῦ, ὅτι ἦν μεταστροφὴ παρὰ τοῦ Θεοῦ, λέγων, ἀνέστησε Κύριος τὸν λόγον αὐτοῦ, ὃν ἐλάλησεν ἐν χειρὶ Ἀχία τοῦ Σηλωνίτου περὶ Ἱεροβοὰμ υἱοῦ Ναβὰτ
And the king hearkened not to the people, for there was a change [of their minds] from God, saying, The Lord has confirmed his word, which he spoke by the hand of Ahijah the Shilonite concerning Jeroboam the son of Nebat, and [concerning] all Israel;
16
וְכָל־יִשְׂרָאֵל כִּי לֹא־שָׁמַע הַמֶּלֶךְ לָהֶם וַיָּשִׁיבוּ הָעָם אֶת־הַמֶּלֶךְ לֵאמֹר מַה־לָּנוּ חֵלֶק בְּדָוִיד וְלֹא־נַחֲלָה בְּבֶן־יִשַׁי אִישׁ לְאֹהָלֶיךָ יִשְׂרָאֵל עַתָּה רְאֵה בֵיתְךָ דָּוִיד וַיֵּלֶךְ כָּל־יִשְׂרָאֵל לְאֹהָלָיו
And when all Israel saw that the king hearkened not unto them, the people answered the king, saying: 'What portion have we in David? neither have we inheritance in the son of Jesse; every man to your tents, O Israel; now see to thine own house, David.' So all Israel departed unto their tents.
καὶ παντὸς Ἰσραὴλ, ὅτι οὐκ ἤκουσεν ὁ βασιλεὺς αὐτῶν· καὶ ἀπεκρίθη ὁ λαὸς πρὸς τὸν βασιλέα, λέγων, τίς ἡμῶν ἡ μερὶς ἐν Δαυὶδ καὶ κληρονομία ἐν υἱῷ Ἰεσσαί; εἰς τὰ σκηνώματά σου, Ἰσραήλ· νῦν βλέπε τὸν οἶκόν σου, Δαυίδ. καὶ ἐπορεύθη πᾶς Ἰσραὴλ εἰς τὰ σκηνώματα αὐτοῦ.
for the king did not hearken to them. And the people answered the king, saying, What portion have we in David, or inheritance in the son of Jesse? to thy tents, O Israel: now see to thine own house, David. So all Israel went to their tents.
17
וּבְנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל הַיֹּשְׁבִים בְּעָרֵי יְהוּדָה וַיִּמְלֹךְ עֲלֵיהֶם רְחַבְעָם
But as for the children of Israel that dwelt in the cities of Judah, Rehoboam reigned over them.
Καὶ ἄνδρες Ἰσραὴλ καὶ οἱ κατοικοῦντες ἐν πόλεσιν Ἰούδα, καὶ ἐβασίλευσαν ἐπʼ αὐτῶν Ῥοβοάμ.
But the men of Israel, even those who dwelt in the cities of Judah, [remained] and made Rehoboam king over them.
18
וַיִּשְׁלַח הַמֶּלֶךְ רְחַבְעָם אֶת־הֲדֹרָם אֲשֶׁר עַל־הַמַּס וַיִּרְגְּמוּ־בוֹ בְנֵי־יִשְׂרָאֵל אֶבֶן וַיָּמֹת וְהַמֶּלֶךְ רְחַבְעָם הִתְאַמֵּץ לַעֲלוֹת בַּמֶּרְכָּבָה לָנוּס יְרוּשָׁלָ͏ִם
Then king Rehoboam sent Hadoram, who was over the levy; and the children of Israel stoned him with stones, so that he died. And king Rehoboam made speed to get him up to his chariot, to flee to Jerusalem.
Καὶ ἀπέστειλεν ἐπʼ αὐτοὺς Ῥοβοὰμ ὁ βασιλεὺς τὸν Ἀδωνιρὰμ τὸν ἐπὶ τοῦ φόρου, καὶ ἐλιθοβόλησαν αὐτὸν οἱ υἱοὶ Ἰσραὴλ λίθοις, καὶ ἀπέθανε· καὶ ὁ βασιλεὺς Ῥοβοὰμ ἔσπευσε τοῦ ἀναβῆναι εἰς τὸ ἅρμα, τοῦ φυγεῖν εἰς Ἱερουσαλήμ.
And King Rehoboam sent to them Hadoram that was over the tribute; and the children of Israel stoned him with stones, and he died. And King Rehoboam hastened to mount [his] chariot, to flee to Jerusalem.
19
וַיִּפְשְׁעוּ יִשְׂרָאֵל בְּבֵית דָּוִיד עַד הַיּוֹם הַזֶּה
So Israel rebelled against the house of David unto this day.
Καὶ ἠθέτησεν Ἰσραὴλ ἐν τῷ οἴκῳ Δαυὶδ ἕως τῆς ἡμέρας ταύτης.
So Israel rebelled against the house of David until this day.

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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.

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