Textorah

II Samuel 21

1
וַיְהִי רָעָב בִּימֵי דָוִד שָׁלֹשׁ שָׁנִים שָׁנָה אַחֲרֵי שָׁנָה וַיְבַקֵּשׁ דָּוִד אֶת־פְּנֵי יְהוָה וַיֹּאמֶר יְהוָה אֶל־שָׁאוּל וְאֶל־בֵּית הַדָּמִים עַל־אֲשֶׁר־הֵמִית אֶת־הַגִּבְעֹנִים
And there was a famine in the days of David three years, year after year; and David sought the face of HaShem. And HaShem said: 'It is for Saul, and for his bloody house, because he put to death the Gibeonites.'
Καὶ ἐγένετο λιμὸς ἐν ταῖς ἡμέραις Δαυὶδ τρία ἔτη, ἐνιαυτὸς ὁ ἐχόμενος ἐνιαυτοῦ· καὶ ἐζήτησε Δαυὶδ τὸ πρόσωπον Κυρίου· καὶ εἶπε Κύριος, ἐπὶ Σαοὺλ καὶ ἐπὶ τὸν οἶκον αὐτοῦ ἀδικία ἐν θανάτῳ αἱμάτων αὐτοῦ, περὶ οὗ ἐθανάτωσε τοὺς Γαβαωνίτας.
And there was a famine in the days of David three years, year after year; and David sought the face of the Lord. And the Lord said, [There is] guilt upon Saul and his house because of his bloody murder, whereby he slew the Gibeonites.
2
וַיִּקְרָא הַמֶּלֶךְ לַגִּבְעֹנִים וַיֹּאמֶר אֲלֵיהֶם וְהַגִּבְעֹנִים לֹא מִבְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל הֵמָּה כִּי אִם־מִיֶּתֶר הָאֱמֹרִי וּבְנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל נִשְׁבְּעוּ לָהֶם וַיְבַקֵּשׁ שָׁאוּל לְהַכֹּתָם בְּקַנֹּאתוֹ לִבְנֵי־יִשְׂרָאֵל וִיהוּדָה
And the king called the Gibeonites, and said unto them--now the Gibeonites were not of the children of Israel, but of the remnant of the Amorites; and the children of Israel had sworn unto them; and Saul sought to slay them in his zeal for the children of Israel and Judah--
Καὶ ἐκάλεσεν ὁ βασιλεὺς Δαυὶδ τοὺς Γαβαωνίτας, καὶ εἶπε πρὸς αὐτούς· καὶ οἱ Γαβαωνίται οὐχ υἱοὶ Ἰσραήλ εἰσιν, ὅτι ἀλλʼ ἢ ἐκ τοῦ ἐλλείμματος τοῦ Ἀμοῤῥαίου, καὶ οἱ υἱοὶ Ἰσραὴλ ὤμοσαν αὐτοῖς· καὶ ἐζήτησε Σαοὺλ πατάξαι αὐτοὺς ἐν τῷ ζηλῶσαι αὐτὸν τοὺς υἱοὺς Ἰσραὴλ καὶ Ἰούδα.
And King David called the Gibeonites, and spoke to them. (Now the Gibeonites are not the children of Israel, but [are] of the remnant of the Amorite, and the children of Israel had sworn to them: but Saul sought to smite them in his zeal for the children of Israel and Judah.)
3
וַיֹּאמֶר דָּוִד אֶל־הַגִּבְעֹנִים מָה אֶעֱשֶׂה לָכֶם וּבַמָּה אֲכַפֵּר וּבָרְכוּ אֶת־נַחֲלַת יְהוָה
and David said unto the Gibeonites: 'What shall I do for you? and wherewith shall I make atonement, that ye may bless the inheritance of HaShem?'
Καὶ εἶπε Δαυὶδ πρὸς τοὺς Γαβαωνίτας, τί ποιήσω ὑμῖν, καὶ ἐν τίνι ἐξιλάσωμαι, καὶ εὐλογήσετε τὴν κληρονομίαν Κυρίου;
And David said to the Gibeonites, What shall I do to you? and wherewithal shall I make atonement, that ye may bless the inheritance of the Lord?
4
וַיֹּאמְרוּ לוֹ הַגִּבְעֹנִים אֵין־לי לָנוּ כֶּסֶף וְזָהָב עִם־שָׁאוּל וְעִם־בֵּיתוֹ וְאֵין־לָנוּ אִישׁ לְהָמִית בְּיִשְׂרָאֵל וַיֹּאמֶר מָה־אַתֶּם אֹמְרִים אֶעֱשֶׂה לָכֶם
And the Gibeonites said unto him: 'It is no matter of silver or gold between us and Saul, or his house; neither is it for us to put any man to death in Israel.' And he said: 'What say ye that I should do for you?'
Καὶ εἶπαν αὐτῷ οἱ Γαβαωνίται, οὐκ ἔστιν ἡμῖν ἀργύριον ἢ χρυσίον μετὰ Σαοὺλ καὶ μετὰ τοῦ οἴκου αὐτοῦ, καὶ οὐκ ἔστιν ἡμῖν ἀνὴρ θανατῶσαι ἐν Ἰσραήλ. Καὶ εἶπε, τί ὑμεῖς λέγετε, καὶ ποιήσω ὑμῖν;
And the Gibeonites said to him, We have no [question about] silver or gold with Saul and with his house; and there is no man for us to put to death in Israel.
5
וַיֹּאמְרוּ אֶל־הַמֶּלֶךְ הָאִישׁ אֲשֶׁר כִּלָּנוּ וַאֲשֶׁר דִּמָּה־לָנוּ נִשְׁמַדְנוּ מֵהִתְיַצֵּב בְּכָל־גְּבֻל יִשְׂרָאֵל
And they said unto the king: 'The man that consumed us, and that devised against us, so that we have been destroyed from remaining in any of the borders of Israel,
καὶ εἶπαν πρὸς τὸν βασιλέα, ὁ ἀνὴρ ὃς συνετέλεσεν ἐφʼ ἡμᾶς καὶ ἐδίωξεν ἡμᾶς, ὃς παρελογίσατο ἐξολοθρεῦσαι ἡμᾶς, ἀφανίσωμεν αὐτὸν, τοῦ μὴ ἑστάναι αὐτὸν ἐν παντὶ ὁρίῳ Ἰσραήλ.
And he said, What say ye? speak, and I will do it for you. And they said to the king, The man who would have made an end of us, and persecuted us, who plotted against us to destroy us, let us utterly destroy him, so that he shall have no standing in all the coasts of Israel.
6
ינתן־יֻתַּן־לָנוּ שִׁבְעָה אֲנָשִׁים מִבָּנָיו וְהוֹק͏ַעֲנוּם לַיהוָה בְּגִבְעַת שָׁאוּל בְּחִיר יְהוָה וַיֹּאמֶר הַמֶּלֶךְ אֲנִי אֶתֵּן
let seven men of his sons be delivered unto us, and we will hang them up unto HaShem in Gibeah of Saul, the chosen of HaShem.' And the king said: 'I will deliver them.'
Δότω ἡμῖν ἑπτὰ ἄνδρας ἐκ τῶν υἱῶν αὐτοῦ, καὶ ἐξηλιάσωμεν αὐτοὺς τῷ Κυρίῳ ἐν τῷ Γαβαὼν Σαοὺλ ἐκλεκτοὺς Κυρίου· καὶ εἶπεν ὁ βασιλεὺς, ἐγὼ δώσω.
Let one give us seven men of his sons, and let us hang them up in the sun to the Lord in Gibeon of Saul, as chosen out for the Lord. And the king said, I will give [them].
7
וַיַּחְמֹל הַמֶּלֶךְ עַל־מְפִי־בֹשֶׁת בֶּן־יְהוֹנָתָן בֶּן־שָׁאוּל עַל־שְׁבֻעַת יְהוָה אֲשֶׁר בֵּינֹתָם בֵּין דָּוִד וּבֵין יְהוֹנָתָן בֶּן־שָׁאוּל
But the king spared Mephibosheth, the son of Jonathan the son of Saul, because of HaShem'S oath that was between them, between David and Jonathan the son of Saul.
Καὶ ἐφείσατο ὁ βασιλεὺς ἐπὶ Μεμφιβοσθὲ υἱὸν Ἰωνάθαν υἱοῦ Σαοὺλ διὰ τὸν ὅρκον Κυρίου τὸν ἀναμέσον αὐτῶν, καὶ ἀναμέσον Δαυὶδ, καὶ ἀναμέσον Ἰωνάθαν υἱοῦ Σαούλ.
But the king spared Mephibosheth son of Jonathan the son of Saul, because of the oath of the Lord that was between them, even between David and Jonathan the son of Saul.
8
וַיִּקַּח הַמֶּלֶךְ אֶת־שְׁנֵי בְּנֵי רִצְפָּה בַת־אַיָּה אֲשֶׁר יָלְדָה לְשָׁאוּל אֶת־אַרְמֹנִי וְאֶת־מְפִבֹשֶׁת וְאֶת־חֲמֵשֶׁת בְּנֵי מִיכַל בַּת־שָׁאוּל אֲשֶׁר יָלְדָה לְעַדְרִיאֵל בֶּן־בַּרְזִלַּי הַמְּחֹלָתִי
But the king took the two sons of Rizpah the daughter of Aiah, whom she bore unto Saul, Armoni and Mephibosheth; and the five sons of Michal the daughter of Saul, whom she bore to Adriel the son of Barzillai the Meholathite;
Καὶ ἔλαβεν ὁ βασιλεὺς τοὺς δύο υἱοὺς Ῥεσφὰ θυγατρὸς Ἁϊᾶ, οὓς ἔτεκε τῷ Σαοὺλ, τὸν Ἐρμωνοῒ καὶ τὸν Μεμφιβοσθὲ, καὶ τοὺς πέντε υἱοὺς τῆς Μιχὸλ θυγατρὸς Σαοὺλ, οὓς ἔτεκε τῷ Ἐσδριὴλ υἱῷ Βερζελλὶ τῷ Μωουλαθί·
And the king took the two sons of Rizpah the daughter of Aiah, whom she bore to Saul, Armoni and Mephibosheth, and the five sons of Michal daughter of Saul, whom she bore to Adriel son of Barzillai the Meholathite.
9
וַיִּתְּנֵם בְּיַד הַגִּבְעֹנִים וַיֹּקִיעֻם בָּהָר לִפְנֵי יְהוָה וַיִּפְּלוּ שבעתים שְׁבַעְתָּם יָחַד והם וְהֵמָּה הֻמְתוּ בִּימֵי קָצִיר בָּרִאשֹׁנִים תחלת בִּתְחִלַּת קְצִיר שְׂעֹרִים
and he delivered them into the hands of the Gibeonites, and they hanged them in the mountain before HaShem, and they fell all seven together; and they were put to death in the days of harvest, in the first days, at the beginning of barley harvest.
Καὶ ἔδωκεν αὐτοὺς ἐν χειρὶ τῶν Γαβαωνιτῶν, καὶ ἐξηλίασαν αὐτοὺς ἐν τῷ ὄρει ἔναντι Κυρίου· καὶ ἔπεσαν οἱ ἑπτὰ αὐτοὶ ἐπὶ τὸ αὐτό· καὶ αὐτοὶ δὲ ἐθανατώθησαν ἐν ἡμέραις θερισμοῦ ἐν πρώτοις, ἐν ἀρχῇ θερισμοῦ κριθῶν.
And he gave them into the hand of the Gibeonites, and they hanged them up to the sun in the mountain before the Lord: and they fell, even the seven together: moreover they were put to death in the days of harvest at the commencement, in the beginning of barley harvest.
10
וַתִּקַּח רִצְפָּה בַת־אַיָּה אֶת־הַשַּׂק וַתַּטֵּהוּ לָהּ אֶל־הַצּוּר מִתְּחִלַּת קָצִיר עַד נִתַּךְ־מַיִם עֲלֵיהֶם מִן־הַשָּׁמָיִם וְלֹא־נָתְנָה עוֹף הַשָּׁמַיִם לָנוּחַ עֲלֵיהֶם יוֹמָם וְאֶת־חַיַּת הַשָּׂדֶה לָיְלָה
And Rizpah the daughter of Aiah took sackcloth, and spread it for her upon the rock, from the beginning of harvest until water was poured upon them from heaven; and she suffered neither the birds of the air to rest on them by day, nor the beasts of the field by night.
Καὶ ἔλαβε Ῥεσφὰ θυγάτηρ Ἁϊᾶ τὸν σάκκον, καὶ ἔπηξεν αὐτῇ πρὸς τὴν πέτραν ἐν ἀρχῇ θερισμοῦ κριθῶν, ἕως ἔσταξεν ἐπʼ αὐτοὺς ὕδωρ ἐκ τοῦ οὐρανοῦ· καὶ οὐκ ἔδωκε τὰ πετεινὰ τοῦ οὐρανοῦ καταπαῦσαι ἐπʼ αὐτοὺς ἡμέρας, καὶ τὰ θηρία τοῦ ἀγροῦ νυκτός.
And Rizpah the daughter of Aiah took sackcloth, and fixed it for herself on the rock in the beginning of barley harvest, until water dropped upon them out of heaven: and she did not suffer the birds of the air to rest upon them by day, nor the beasts of the field by night.
11
וַיֻּגַּד לְדָוִד אֵת אֲשֶׁר־עָשְׂתָה רִצְפָּה בַת־אַיָּה פִּלֶגֶשׁ שָׁאוּל
And it was told David what Rizpah the daughter of Aiah, the concubine of Saul, had done.
Καὶ ἀπηγγέλη τῷ Δαυὶδ ὅσα ἐποίησε Ῥεσφὰ θυγάτηρ Ἁϊᾶ παλλακὴ Σαούλ· καὶ ἐξελύθησαν, καὶ κατέλαβεν αὐτοὺς Δὰν υἱὸς Ἰωὰ ἐκ τῶν ἀπογόνων τῶν γιγάντων.
And it was told David what Rizpah the daughter of Aiah the concubine of Saul had done, and they were faint, and Dan the son of Joa of the offspring of the giants overtook them.
12
וַיֵּלֶךְ דָּוִד וַיִּקַּח אֶת־עַצְמוֹת שָׁאוּל וְאֶת־עַצְמוֹת יְהוֹנָתָן בְּנוֹ מֵאֵת בַּעֲלֵי יָבֵישׁ גִּלְעָד אֲשֶׁר גָּנְבוּ אֹתָם מֵרְחֹב בֵּית־שַׁן אֲשֶׁר תלום תְּלָאוּם שם הפלשתים שָׁמָּה פְּלִשְׁתִּים בְּיוֹם הַכּוֹת פְּלִשְׁתִּים אֶת־שָׁאוּל בַּגִּלְבֹּעַ
And David went and took the bones of Saul and the bones of Jonathan his son from the men of Jabesh-gilead, who had stolen them from the broad place of Beth-shan, where the Philistines had hanged them, in the day that the Philistines slew Saul in Gilboa;
Καὶ ἐπορεύθη Δαυὶδ καὶ ἔλαβε τὰ ὀστᾶ Σαοὺλ, καὶ τὰ ὀστᾶ Ἰωνάθαν τοῦ υἱοῦ αὐτοῦ, παρὰ τῶν ἀνδρῶν υἱῶν Ἰαβὶς Γαλαὰδ, οἳ ἔκλεψαν αὐτοὺς ἐκ τῆς πλατείας Βαιθσὰν, ὅτι ἔστησαν αὐτοὺς ἐκεῖ οἱ ἀλλόφυλοι ἐν τῇ ἡμέρᾳ ᾗ ἐπάταξαν οἱ ἀλλόφυλοι τὸν Σαοὺλ ἐν Γελβουέ.
And David went and took the bones of Saul, and the bones of Jonathan his son, from the men of the sons of Jabesh-gilead, who stole them from the street of Beth-shan; for the Philistines set them there in the day in which the Philistines smote Saul in Gilboa.
13
וַיַּעַל מִשָּׁם אֶת־עַצְמוֹת שָׁאוּל וְאֶת־עַצְמוֹת יְהוֹנָתָן בְּנוֹ וַיַּאַסְפוּ אֶת־עַצְמוֹת הַמּוּקָעִים
and he brought up from thence the bones of Saul and the bones of Jonathan his son; and they gathered the bones of them that were hanged.
Καὶ ἁνένεγκεν ἐκεῖθεν τὰ ὀστᾶ Σαοὺλ καὶ τὰ ὀστᾶ Ἰωνάθαν τοῦ υἱοῦ αὐτοῦ, καὶ συνήγαγε τὰ ὀστᾶ τῶν ἐξηλιασμένων.
And he carried up thence the bones of Saul and the bones of Jonathan his son, and gathered the bones of them that had been hanged.
14
וַיִּקְבְּרוּ אֶת־עַצְמוֹת־שָׁאוּל וִיהוֹנָתָן־בְּנוֹ בְּאֶרֶץ בִּנְיָמִן בְּצֵלָע בְּקֶבֶר קִישׁ אָבִיו וַיַּעֲשׂוּ כֹּל אֲשֶׁר־צִוָּה הַמֶּלֶךְ וַיֵּעָתֵר אֱלֹהִים לָאָרֶץ אַחֲרֵי־כֵן
And they buried the bones of Saul and Jonathan his son in the country of Benjamin in Zela, in the sepulchre of Kish his father; and they performed all that the king commanded. And after that G-d was entreated for the land.
Καὶ ἔθαψαν τὰ ὀστᾶ Σαοὺλ καὶ τὰ ὀστᾶ Ἰωνάθαν τοῦ υἱοῦ αὐτοῦ καὶ τὰ ὀστᾶ τῶν ἡλιασθένων ἐν γῇ Βενιαμὶν ἐν τῇ πλευρᾷ ἐν τῷ τάφῳ Κὶς τοῦ πατρὸς αὐτοῦ· καὶ ἐποίησαν πάντα ὅσα ἐνετείλατο ὁ βασιλεύς· καὶ ἐπήκουσεν ὁ Θεὸς τῇ γῇ μετὰ ταῦτα.
And they buried the bones of Saul and the bones of Jonathan his son, and the bones of them that had been hanged, in the land of Benjamin in the hill, in the sepulcher of Kish his father; and they did all things that the king commanded: and after this God hearkened to [the prayers of] the land.
15
וַתְּהִי־עוֹד מִלְחָמָה לַפְּלִשְׁתִּים אֶת־יִשְׂרָאֵל וַיֵּרֶד דָּוִד וַעֲבָדָיו עִמּוֹ וַיִּלָּחֲמוּ אֶת־פְּלִשְׁתִּים וַיָּעַף דָּוִד
And the Philistines had war again with Israel; and David went down, and his servants with him, and fought against the Philistines; and David waxed faint.
Καὶ ἐγενήθη ἔτι πόλεμος τοῖς ἀλλοφύλοις μετὰ Ἰσραήλ· καὶ κατέβη Δαυὶδ καὶ οἱ παῖδες αὐτοῦ μετʼ αὐτοῦ, καὶ ἐπολέμησαν μετὰ τῶν ἀλλοφύλων· καὶ ἐπορεύθη Δαυίδ.
And there was yet war between the Philistines and Israel: and David went down and his servants with him, and they fought with the Philistines, and David went.
16
וישבו וְיִשְׁבִּי בְּנֹב אֲשֶׁר בִּילִידֵי הָרָפָה וּמִשְׁקַל קֵינוֹ שְׁלֹשׁ מֵאוֹת מִשְׁקַל נְחֹשֶׁת וְהוּא חָגוּר חֲדָשָׁה וַיֹּאמֶר לְהַכּוֹת אֶת־דָּוִד
And Ishbibenob, who was of the sons of the giant, the weight of whose spear was three hundred shekels of brass in weight, he being girded with new armour, thought to have slain David.
Καὶ Ἰεσβὶ, ὃς ἦν ἐν τοῖς ἐκγόνοις τοῦ Ῥαφά, καὶ ὁ σταθμὸς τοῦ δόρατος αὐτοῦ, τριακοσίων σίκλων ὁλκῇ χαλκοῦ, καὶ αὐτὸς περιεζωσμένος κορύνην, καὶ διενοεῖτο τοῦ πατάξαι τὸν Δαυίδ.
And Ishbi, who was of the progeny of Rapha, and the head of whose spear [was] three hundred shekels of brass in weight, who also was girded with a club, even he thought to smite David.
17
וַיַּעֲזָר־לוֹ אֲבִישַׁי בֶּן־צְרוּיָה וַיַּךְ אֶת־הַפְּלִשְׁתִּי וַיְמִיתֵהוּ אָז נִשְׁבְּעוּ אַנְשֵׁי־דָוִד לוֹ לֵאמֹר לֹא־תֵצֵא עוֹד אִתָּנוּ לַמִּלְחָמָה וְלֹא תְכַבֶּה אֶת־נֵר יִשְׂרָאֵל
But Abishai the son of Zeruiah succoured him, and smote the Philistine, and killed him. Then the men of David swore unto him, saying: 'Thou shalt go no more out with us to battle, that thou quench not the lamp of Israel.'
Καὶ ἐβοήθησεν αὐτῷ Ἀβεσσὰ υἱὸς Σαρουίας, καὶ ἐπάταξε τὸν ἀλλόφυλον καὶ ἐθανάτωσεν αὐτόν· τότε ὤμοσαν οἱ ἄνδρες Δαυὶδ, λέγοντες, οὐκ ἐξελεύσῃ ἔτι μεθʼ ἡμῶν εἰς πόλεμον, καὶ οὐ μὴ σβέσῃς τὸν λύχνον Ἰσραήλ.
And Abishai the son of Zeruiah helped him and smote the Philistine, and slew him. Then the men of David swore, saying, Thou shalt not any longer go out with us to battle, and thou shalt not quench the lamp of Israel.
18
וַיְהִי אַחֲרֵי־כֵן וַתְּהִי־עוֹד הַמִּלְחָמָה בְּגוֹב עִם־פְּלִשְׁתִּים אָז הִכָּה סִבְּכַי הַחֻשָׁתִי אֶת־סַף אֲשֶׁר בִּילִדֵי הָרָפָה
And it came to pass after this, that there was again war with the Philistines at Gob; then Sibbecai the Hushathite slew Saph, who was of the sons of the giant.
Καὶ ἐγενήθη μετὰ ταῦτα ἔτι πόλεμος ἐν Γὲθ μετὰ τῶν ἀλλοφύλων· τότε ἐπάταξε Σεβοχὰ ὁ Ἀστατωθὶ τὸν Σὲφ ἐν τοῖς ἐγγόνοις τοῦ Ῥαφά.
And after this there was a battle again with the Philistines in Gath: then Sibbecai the Hushathite slew Saph of the progeny of Rapha.
19
וַתְּהִי־עוֹד הַמִּלְחָמָה בְּגוֹב עִם־פְּלִשְׁתִּים וַיַּךְ אֶלְחָנָן בֶּן־יַעְרֵי אֹרְגִים בֵּית הַלַּחְמִי אֵת גָּלְיָת הַגִּתִּי וְעֵץ חֲנִיתוֹ כִּמְנוֹר אֹרְגִים
And there was again war with the Philistines at Gob; and Elhanan the son of Jaare-oregim the Beth-lehemite slew Goliath the Gittite, the staff of whose spear was like a weaver's beam.
Καὶ ἐγένετο ὁ πόλεμος ἐν Ῥὸμ μετὰ τῶν ἀλλοφύλων· καὶ ἐπάταξεν Ἐλεανὰν υἱὸς Ἀριωργὶμ ὁ Βαιθλεεμίτης τὸν Γολιὰθ τὸν Γεθαῖον· καὶ τὸ ξύλον τοῦ δόρατος αὐτοῦ ὡς ἀντίον ὑφαινόντων.
And there was a battle in Gob with the Philistines; and Elhanan son of Jaare-oregim the Bethlehemite slew Goliath the Gittite; and the staff of his spear [was] as a weaver’s beam.
20
וַתְּהִי־עוֹד מִלְחָמָה בְּגַת וַיְהִי אִישׁ מדין מָדוֹן וְאֶצְבְּעֹת יָדָיו וְאֶצְבְּעֹת רַגְלָיו שֵׁשׁ וָשֵׁשׁ עֶשְׂרִים וְאַרְבַּע מִסְפָּר וְגַם־הוּא יֻלַּד לְהָרָפָה
And there was again war at Gath, where was a champion, that had on every hand six fingers, and on every foot six toes, four and twenty in number; and he also was born to the giant.
Καὶ ἐγένετο ἔτι πόλεμος ἐν Γέθ· καὶ ἦν ἀνὴρ μαδὼν, καὶ οἱ δάκτυλοι τῶν χειρῶν αὐτοῦ, καὶ οἱ δάκτυλοι τῶν ποδῶν αὐτοῦ ἓξ καὶ ἓξ, εἰκοσιτέσσαρες ἀριθμῷ· καί γε αὐτὸς ἐτέχθη τῷ Ῥαφᾴ.
And there was yet a battle in Gath: and there was a man of stature, and the fingers of his hands and the toes of his feet [were] six on each, four and twenty in number: and he also was born to Rapha.
21
וַיְחָרֵף אֶת־יִשְׂרָאֵל וַיַּכֵּהוּ יְהוֹנָתָן בֶּן־שמעי שִׁמְעָה אֲחִי דָוִד
And when he taunted Israel, Jonathan the son of Shimea David's brother slew him.
Καὶ ὠνείδισε τὸν Ἰσραὴλ, καὶ ἐπάταξεν αὐτὸν Ἰωνάθαν υἱὸς Σεμεῒ ἀδελφοῦ Δαυίδ.
And he defied Israel, and Jonathan son of Shimei brother of David, smote him.
22
אֶת־אַרְבַּעַת אֵלֶּה יֻלְּדוּ לְהָרָפָה בְּגַת וַיִּפְּלוּ בְיַד־דָּוִד וּבְיַד עֲבָדָיו
These four were born to the giant in Gath; and they fell by the hand of David, and by the hand of his servants.
Οἱ τέσσαρες οὗτοι ἐτέχθησαν ἀπόγονοι τῶν γιγάντων ἐν Γὲθ τῷ Ῥαφὰ οἶκος, καὶ ἔπεσαν ἐν χειρὶ Δαυὶδ, καὶ ἐν χειρὶ τῶν δούλων αὐτοῦ.
These four were born descendants of the giants in Gath, the family of Rapha; and they fell by the hand of David, and by the hand of his servants.

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.