Textorah

II Kings 24

1
בְּיָמָיו עָלָה נְבֻכַדְנֶאצַּר מֶלֶךְ בָּבֶל וַיְהִי־לוֹ יְהוֹיָקִים עֶבֶד שָׁלֹשׁ שָׁנִים וַיָּשָׁב וַיִּמְרָד־בּוֹ
In his days Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came up, and Jehoiakim became his servant three years; then he turned and rebelled against him.
Ἐν ταῖς ἡμέραις αὐτοῦ ἀνέβη Ναβουχοδονόσορ βασιλεὺς Βαβυλῶνος, καὶ ἐγενήθη αὐτῷ Ἰωακὶμ δοῦλος τρία ἔτη· καὶ ἐπέστρεψε καὶ ἠθέτησεν ἐν αὐτῷ.
In his days went up Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and Jehoiakim became his servant three years; and [then] he turned and revolted from him.
2
וַיְשַׁלַּח יְהוָה בּוֹ אֶת־גְּדוּדֵי כַשְׂדִּים וְאֶת־גְּדוּדֵי אֲרָם וְאֵת גְּדוּדֵי מוֹאָב וְאֵת גְּדוּדֵי בְנֵי־עַמּוֹן וַיְשַׁלְּחֵם בִּיהוּדָה לְהַאֲבִידוֹ כִּדְבַר יְהוָה אֲשֶׁר דִּבֶּר בְּיַד עֲבָדָיו הַנְּבִיאִים
And HaShem sent against him bands of the Chaldeans, and bands of the Arameans, and bands of the Moabites, and bands of the children of Ammon, and sent them against Judah to destroy it, according to the word of HaShem, which He spoke by the hand of His servants the prophets.
Καὶ ἀπέστειλε Κύριος αὐτῷ τοὺς μονοζώνους τῶν Χαλδαίων, καὶ τοὺς μονοζώνους Συρίας, καὶ τοὺς μονοζώνους Μωὰβ, καὶ τοὺς μονοζώνους υἱῶν Ἀμμὼν, καὶ ἐξαπέστειλεν αὐτοὺς ἐν τῇ γῇ Ἰούδα τοῦ κατισχῦσαι κατὰ τὸν λόγον Κυρίου, ὃν ἐλάλησεν ἐν χειρὶ τῶν δούλων αὐτοῦ τῶν προφητῶν.
And the Lord sent against him the bands of the Chaldeans, and the bands of Syria, and the bands of Moab, and the bands of the children of Ammon, and sent them into the land of Judah to prevail [against it], according to the word of the Lord, which he spoke by his servants the prophets.
3
אַךְ עַל־פִּי יְהוָה הָיְתָה בִּיהוּדָה לְהָסִיר מֵעַל פָּנָיו בְּחַטֹּאת מְנַשֶּׁה כְּכֹל אֲשֶׁר עָשָׂה
Surely at the commandment of HaShem came this upon Judah, to remove them out of His sight, for the sins of Manasseh, according to all that he did;
Πλὴν ἐπὶ τὸν θυμὸν Κυρίου ἦν ἐν τῷ Ἰούδα, ἀποστῆσαι αὐτὸν ἀπὸ τοῦ προσώπου αὐτὸν ἐν ἁμαρτίαις Μανασσὴ κατὰ πάντα ὅσα ἐποίησε.
Moreover it was the purpose of the Lord concerning Judah, to remove them from his presence, because of the sins of Manasseh, according to all that he did.
4
וְגַם דַּם־הַנָּקִי אֲשֶׁר שָׁפָךְ וַיְמַלֵּא אֶת־יְרוּשָׁלַ͏ִם דָּם נָקִי וְלֹא־אָבָה יְהוָה לִסְלֹחַ
and also for the innocent blood that he shed; for he filled Jerusalem with innocent blood; and HaShem would not pardon.
Καί γε τὸ αἷμα ἀθῶον, ἐξέχεε, καὶ ἔπλησε τὴν Ἰερουσαλὴμ αἵματος ἀθώου, καὶ οὐκ ἠθέλησε Κύριος ἱλασθῆναι.
Moreover he shed innocent blood, and filled Jerusalem with innocent blood, and the Lord would not pardon [it].
5
וְיֶתֶר דִּבְרֵי יְהוֹיָקִים וְכָל־אֲשֶׁר עָשָׂה הֲלֹא־הֵם כְּתוּבִים עַל־סֵפֶר דִּבְרֵי הַיָּמִים לְמַלְכֵי יְהוּדָה
Now the rest of the acts of Jehoiakim, and all that he did, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah?
Καὶ τὰ λοιπὰ τῶν λόγων Ἰωακὶμ καὶ πάντα ὅσα ἐποίησεν, οὐκ ἰδοὺ ταῦτα γεγραμμένα ἐπὶ βιβλίῳ λόγων τῶν ἡμερῶν τοῖς βασιλεῦσιν Ἰούδα;
And the rest of the acts of Jehoiakim, and all that he did, behold, [are] not these written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah?
6
וַיִּשְׁכַּב יְהוֹיָקִים עִם־אֲבֹתָיו וַיִּמְלֹךְ יְהוֹיָכִין בְּנוֹ תַּחְתָּיו
So Jehoiakim slept with his fathers; and Jehoiachin his son reigned in his stead.
καὶ ἐκοιμήθη Ἰωακεὶμ μετὰ τῶν πατέρων αὐτοῦ, καὶ ἐβασίλευσεν Ἰωακεὶμ υἱὸς αὐτοῦ ἀντʼ αὐτοῦ.
And Jehoiakim slept with his fathers: and Jehoiachin his son reigned in his stead.
7
וְלֹא־הֹסִיף עוֹד מֶלֶךְ מִצְרַיִם לָצֵאת מֵאַרְצוֹ כִּי־לָקַח מֶלֶךְ בָּבֶל מִנַּחַל מִצְרַיִם עַד־נְהַר־פְּרָת כֹּל אֲשֶׁר הָיְתָה לְמֶלֶךְ מִצְרָיִם
And the king of Egypt came not again any more out of his land; for the king of Babylon had taken, from the Brook of Egypt unto the river Euphrates, all that pertained to the king of Egypt.
Καὶ οὐ προσέθετο ἔτι βασιλεὺς Αἰγύπτου ἐξελθεῖν ἐκ τῆς γῆς αὐτοῦ, ὅτι ἔλαβε βασιλεὺς Βαβυλῶνος ἀπὸ τοῦ χειμάῤῥου Αἰγύπτου ἕως τοῦ ποταμοῦ Εὐφράτου πάντα ὅσα ἦν τοῦ βασιλέως Αἰγύπτου.
And the king of Egypt came no more out of his land: for the king of Babylon took away all that belonged to the king of Egypt from the river of Egypt as far as the river Euphrates.
8
בֶּן־שְׁמֹנֶה עֶשְׂרֵה שָׁנָה יְהוֹיָכִין בְּמָלְכוֹ וּשְׁלֹשָׁה חֳדָשִׁים מָלַךְ בִּירוּשָׁלָ͏ִם וְשֵׁם אִמּוֹ נְחֻשְׁתָּא בַת־אֶלְנָתָן מִירוּשָׁלָ͏ִם
Jehoiachin was eighteen years old when he began to reign; and he reigned in Jerusalem three months; and his mother's name was Nehushta the daughter of Elnathan of Jerusalem.
Υἱὸς ὀκτωκαίδεκα ἐτῶν Ἰωαχὶμ ἐν τῷ βασιλεύειν αὐτὸν, καὶ τρίμηνον ἐβασίλευσεν ἐν Ἱερουσαλὴμ, καὶ ὄνομα τῇ μητρὶ αὐτοῦ Νέσθα, θυγάτηρ Ἐλλαναθὰμ, ἐξ Ἱερουσαλήμ.
Eighteen years old [was] Jehoiachin when he began to reign, and he reigned three months in Jerusalem: and his mother’s name [was] Nehushta, daughter of Elnathan, of Jerusalem.
9
וַיַּעַשׂ הָרַע בְּעֵינֵי יְהוָה כְּכֹל אֲשֶׁר־עָשָׂה אָבִיו
And he did that which was evil in the sight of HaShem, according to all that his father had done.
Καὶ ἐποίησε τὸ πονηρὸν ἐν ὀφθαλμοῖς Κυρίου, κατὰ πάντα ὅσα ἐποίησεν ὁ πατὴρ αὐτοῦ.
And he did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord, according to all that his father did.
10
בָּעֵת הַהִיא עלה עָלוּ עַבְדֵי נְבֻכַדְנֶאצַּר מֶלֶךְ־בָּבֶל יְרוּשָׁלָ͏ִם וַתָּבֹא הָעִיר בַּמָּצוֹר
At that time the servants of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came up to Jerusalem, and the city was besieged.
Ἐν τῷ καιρῷ ἐκείνῳ ἀνέβη Ναβουχοδονόσορ βασιλεὺς Βαβυλῶνος εἰς Ἱερουσαλὴμ, καὶ ἦλθεν ἡ πόλις ἐν περιοχῇ.
At that time went up Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon to Jerusalem, and the city was besieged.
11
וַיָּבֹא נְבוּכַדְנֶאצַּר מֶלֶךְ־בָּבֶל עַל־הָעִיר וַעֲבָדָיו צָרִים עָלֶיהָ
And Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came unto the city, while his servants were besieging it.
Καὶ εἰσῆλθε Ναβουχοδονόσορ βασιλεὺς Βαβυλῶνος εἰς πόλιν, καὶ οἱ παῖδες αὐτοῦ ἐπολιόρκουν ἐπʼ αὐτήν.
And Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came against the city, and his servants besieged it.
12
וַיֵּצֵא יְהוֹיָכִין מֶלֶךְ־יְהוּדָה עַל־מֶלֶךְ בָּבֶל הוּא וְאִמּוֹ וַעֲבָדָיו וְשָׂרָיו וְסָרִיסָיו וַיִּקַּח אֹתוֹ מֶלֶךְ בָּבֶל בִּשְׁנַת שְׁמֹנֶה לְמָלְכוֹ
And Jehoiachin the king of Judah went out to the king of Babylon, he, and his mother, and his servants, and his princes, and his officers; and the king of Babylon took him in the eighth year of his reign.
Καὶ ἐξῆλθεν Ἰωαχὶμ βασιλεὺς Ἰούδα ἐπὶ βασιλέα Βαβυλῶνος, αὐτὸς καὶ οἱ παῖδες αὐτοῦ, καὶ ἡ μήτηρ αὐτοῦ, καὶ οἱ ἄρχοντες αὐτοῦ, καὶ οἱ εὐνοῦχοι αὐτοῦ· καὶ ἔλαβεν αὐτὸν βασιλεὺς Βαβυλῶνος ἐν τῷ ὀγδόῳ ἔτει τῆς βασιλείας αὐτοῦ.
And Jehoiachin king of Judah came forth to the king of Babylon, he and his servants, and his mother, and his princes, and his eunuchs; and the king of Babylon took him in the eighth year of his reign.
13
וַיּוֹצֵא מִשָּׁם אֶת־כָּל־אוֹצְרוֹת בֵּית יְהוָה וְאוֹצְרוֹת בֵּית הַמֶּלֶךְ וַיְקַצֵּץ אֶת־כָּל־כְּלֵי הַזָּהָב אֲשֶׁר עָשָׂה שְׁלֹמֹה מֶלֶךְ־יִשְׂרָאֵל בְּהֵיכַל יְהוָה כַּאֲשֶׁר דִּבֶּר יְהוָה
And he carried out thence all the treasures of the house of HaShem, and the treasures of the king's house, and cut in pieces all the vessels of gold which Solomon king of Israel had made in the temple of HaShem, as HaShem had said.
Καὶ ἐξήνεγκεν ἐκεῖθεν πάντας τοὺς θησαυροὺς οἴκου Κυρίου, καὶ τοὺς θησαυροὺς οἴκου τοῦ βασιλέως, καὶ συνέκοψε πάντα τὰ σκεύη τὰ χρυσᾶ ἃ ἐποίησε Σαλωμὼν ὁ βασιλεὺς Ἰσραὴλ ἐν τῷ ναῷ Κυρίου κατὰ τὸ ῥῆμα Κυρίου.
And he brought forth thence all the treasures of the house of the Lord, and the treasures of the king’s house, and he cut up all the golden vessels which Solomon the king of Israel [had] made in the temple of the Lord, according to the word of the Lord.
14
וְהִגְלָה אֶת־כָּל־יְרוּשָׁלִַם וְאֶת־כָּל־הַשָּׂרִים וְאֵת כָּל־גִּבּוֹרֵי הַחַיִל עשרה עֲשֶׂרֶת אֲלָפִים גּוֹלֶה וְכָל־הֶחָרָשׁ וְהַמַּסְגֵּר לֹא נִשְׁאַר זוּלַת דַּלַּת עַם־הָאָרֶץ
And he carried away all Jerusalem, and all the princes, and all the mighty men of valour, even ten thousand captives, and all the craftsmen and the smiths; none remained, save the poorest sort of the people of the land.
Καὶ ἀπῴκισε τὴν Ἱερουσαλὴμ καὶ πάντας τοὺς ἄρχοντας καὶ τοὺς δυνατοὺς ἰσχύϊ αἰχμαλωσίας δέκα χιλιάδας αἰχμαλωτίσας, καὶ πᾶν τέκτονα καὶ τὸν συγκλείοντα, καὶ οὐχ ὑπελείφθη πλὴν οἱ πτωχοὶ τῆς γῆς.
And he carried away [the inhabitants of] Jerusalem, and all the captains, and the mighty men, taking captive ten thousand prisoners, and every artificer and smith: and only the poor of the land were left.
15
וַיֶּגֶל אֶת־יְהוֹיָכִין בָּבֶלָה וְאֶת־אֵם הַמֶּלֶךְ וְאֶת־נְשֵׁי הַמֶּלֶךְ וְאֶת־סָרִיסָיו וְאֵת אולי אֵילֵי הָאָרֶץ הוֹלִיךְ גּוֹלָה מִירוּשָׁלַ͏ִם בָּבֶלָה
And he carried away Jehoiachin to Babylon; and the king's mother, and the king's wives, and his officers, and the chief men of the land, carried he into captivity from Jerusalem to Babylon.
Καὶ ἀπῴκισε τὸν Ἰωαχὶμ εἰς Βαβυλῶνα, καὶ τὴν μητέρα τοῦ βασιλέως, καὶ τὰς γυναῖκας τοῦ βασιλέως, καὶ τοὺς εὐνούχους αὐτοῦ· καὶ τοὺς ἰσχυροὺς τῆς γῆς ἀπήγαγεν εἰς ἀποικεσίαν ἐξ Ἱερουσαλὴμ εἰς Βαβυλῶνα·
And he carried Jehoiachin away to Babylon, and the king’s mother, and the king’s wives, and his eunuchs: and he carried away the mighty men of the land into captivity from Jerusalem to Babylon.
16
וְאֵת כָּל־אַנְשֵׁי הַחַיִל שִׁבְעַת אֲלָפִים וְהֶחָרָשׁ וְהַמַּסְגֵּר אֶלֶף הַכֹּל גִּבּוֹרִים עֹשֵׂי מִלְחָמָה וַיְבִיאֵם מֶלֶךְ־בָּבֶל גּוֹלָה בָּבֶלָה
And all the men of might, even seven thousand, and the craftsmen and the smiths a thousand, all of them strong and apt for war, even them the king of Babylon brought captive to Babylon.
Καὶ πάντας τοὺς ἄνδρας τῆς δυνάμεως ἑπτακισχιλίους, καὶ τὸν τέκτονα καὶ τὸν συγκλείοντα χιλίους· πάντες δυνατοὶ ποιοῦντες πόλεμον· καὶ ἤγαγεν αὐτοὺς βασιλεὺς Βαβυλῶνος μετοικεσίαν εἰς Βαβυλῶνα.
And all the men of might, even seven thousand, and one thousand artificers and smiths: all [were] mighty [men] fit for war; and the king of Babylon carried them captive to Babylon.
17
וַיַּמְלֵךְ מֶלֶךְ־בָּבֶל אֶת־מַתַּנְיָה דֹדוֹ תַּחְתָּיו וַיַּסֵּב אֶת־שְׁמוֹ צִדְקִיָּהוּ
And the king of Babylon made Mattaniah his father's brother king in his stead, and changed his name to Zedekiah.
Καὶ ἐβασίλευσε βασιλεὺς Βαβυλῶνος τὸν Βατθανίαν υἱὸν αὐτοῦ ἀντʼ αὐτοῦ, καὶ ἐπέθηκε τὸ ὄνομα αὐτοῦ, Σεδεκία.
And the king of Babylon made Mattaniah his son king in his stead, and called his name Zedekiah.
18
בֶּן־עֶשְׂרִים וְאַחַת שָׁנָה צִדְקִיָּהוּ בְמָלְכוֹ וְאַחַת עֶשְׂרֵה שָׁנָה מָלַךְ בִּירוּשָׁלָ͏ִם וְשֵׁם אִמּוֹ חמיטל חֲמוּטַל בַּת־יִרְמְיָהוּ מִלִּבְנָה
Zedekiah was twenty and one years old when he began to reign; and he reigned eleven years in Jerusalem; and his mother's name was Hamutal the daughter of Jeremiah of Libnah.
Υἱὸς εἴκοσι καὶ ἑνὸς ἑνιαυτῶν Σεδεκίας ἐν τῷ βασιλεύειν αὐτὸν, καὶ ἔνδεκα ἔτη ἐβασίλευσεν ἐν Ἱερουσαλὴμ, καὶ ὄνομα τῇ μητρὶ αὐτοῦ Ἀμιτὰλ, θυγὰτηρ Ἱερεμίου.
Twenty and one years old [was] Zedekiah when he began to reign, and he reigned eleven years in Jerusalem: and his mother’s name [was] Hamutal, daughter of Jeremiah.
19
וַיַּעַשׂ הָרַע בְּעֵינֵי יְהוָה כְּכֹל אֲשֶׁר־עָשָׂה יְהוֹיָקִים
And he did that which was evil in the sight of HaShem, according to all that Jehoiakim had done.
Καὶ ἐποίησε τὸ πονηρὸν ἐνώπιον Κυρίου, κατὰ πάντα ὅσα ἐποίησεν Ἰωακίμ.
And he did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord, according to all that Jehoiachin did.
20
כִּי עַל־אַף יְהוָה הָיְתָה בִירוּשָׁלִַם וּבִיהוּדָה עַד־הִשְׁלִכוֹ אֹתָם מֵעַל פָּנָיו וַיִּמְרֹד צִדְקִיָּהוּ בְּמֶלֶךְ בָּבֶל
For through the anger of HaShem did it come to pass in Jerusalem and Judah, until He had cast them out from His presence. And Zedekiah rebelled against the king of Babylon.
Ὅτι ἐπὶ τὸν θυμὸν Κυρίου ἦν ἐπὶ Ἱερουσαλὴμ καὶ ἐν τῷ Ἰούδα, ἕως ἀπέῤῥιψεν αὐτοὺς ἀπὸ προσώπου αὐτοῦ· καὶ ἠθέτησε Σεδεκίας ἐν τῷ βασιλεῖ Βαβυλῶνος.
For it was according to the Lord’s anger against Jerusalem and on Judah, until he cast them out of his presence, that Zedekiah revolted against the king of Babylon.

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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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