Textorah

Ben Sira 14

1
אַשְׁרֵי אֱנוֹשׁ לֹא עֲזָבוֹ פִיהוּ, וְלֹא אָבַח עָלָיו דִּין לִבּוֹ.
Happy is the man whom his own mouth hath not troubled; And whose heart hath not condemned him (?).
Μακάριος ἀνὴρ ὃς οὐκ ὠλίσθησεν ἐν στόματι αὐτοῦ, καὶ οὐ κατενύγη ἐν λύπῃ ἁμαρτίας.
Blessed is the man that hath not slipped with his mouth, And is not pricked with the multitude of sins.
2
אַשְׁרֵי אִישׁ לֹא חִסַּדְתּוֹ נַפְשׁוֹ, וְלֹא שָׁבְתָה תּוֹחַלְתּוֹ.
Happy is the man whose soul hath not reproached (H failed) him; And whose expectation hath not ceased.
Μακάριος οὗ οὐ κατέγνω ἡ ψυχὴ αὐτοῦ, καὶ ὃς οὐκ ἔπεσεν ἀπὸ τῆς ἐλπίδος αὐτοῦ.
Blessed is he whose conscience hath not condemned him, And who is not fallen from his hope [in the Lord].
3
לְלֵב קָטֹן לֹא נָאוֶה עֹשֶׁר, וּלְאִישׁ רַע עַיִן לֹא נָאוֶה חָרוּץ.
Wealth is not comely for a little heart; And fine gold is not comely for one whose eye is evil.
Ἀνδρὶ μικρολόγῳ οὐ καλὸς ὁ πλοῦτος, καὶ ἀνθρώπῳ βασκάνῳ ἱνατί χρήματα;
Riches are not comely for a niggard: And what should an envious man do with money?
4
מוֹנֵעַ לְנַפְשׁוֹ יִקְבֹּץ לְאַחֵר, וּבְטוֹבָתוֹ יִתְבַּעְבֵּעַ זָר.
He that stinteth (?) himself gathereth for another; And a stranger shall revel (?) in his goods.
Ὁ συνάγων ἀπὸ τῆς ψυχῆς αὐτοῦ, συνάγει ἄλλοις, καὶ ἐν τοῖς ἀγαθοῖς αὐτοῦ τρυφήσουσιν ἕτεροι.
He that gathereth by defrauding his own soul gathereth for others That shall spend his goods riotously.
5
רַע לְנַפְשׁוֹ לְמִי יֵיטִיב, וְלֹא יִרְאֶה בְּטוֹבָתוֹ.
He that is evil to himself, to whom will he be good? And he will not enjoy (?) his own goods.
Ὁ πονηρὸς ἑαυτῷ, τίνι ἀγαθὸς ἔσται; καὶ οὐ μὴ εὐφρανθήσεται ἐν τοῖς χρήμασιν αὐτοῦ.
He that is evil to himself, to whom will he be good? He shall not take pleasure in his goods.
6
רַע לְנַפְשׁוֹ אֵין רַע מִמֶּנּוּ, וְעִמּוֹ תּשְלוּמַת רָעָתוֹ.
There is none more evil than he that is evil to himself; And he hath with him the recompense of his wickedness.
Τοῦ βασκαίνοντος ἑαυτὸν οὐκ ἔστι πονηρότερος, καὶ τοῦτο ἀνταπόδομα τῆς κακίας αὐτοῦ·
There is none worse than he that envieth himself; And this is a recompense of his wickedness.
7
κᾂν εὐποιῇ, ἐν λήθῃ ποιεῖ, καὶ ἐπʼ ἐσχάτων ἐκφαίνει τὴν κακίαν αὐτοῦ.
And if he doeth good, he doeth it unwillingly; And at the last he will declare his wickedness.
8
Πονηρὸς ὁ βασκαίνων ὀφθαλμῷ, ἀποστρέφων πρόσωπον καὶ ὁ ὑπερορῶν ψυχάς.
The envious man hath a wicked eye; He turneth away his face, and despiseth men.
9
בְּעֵין כּוֹשֵׁל מְעַט הוּא חֶלְקוֹ, וְלוֹקֵחַ חֵלֶק רֵעֵהוּ מְאַבֵּד חֶלְקוֹ.
In the eye of a fool (S) his portion is small; But he that taketh his neighbour's portion wasteth his own (?).
Πλεονέκτου ὀφθαλμὸς οὐκ ἐμπίπλαται μερίδι, καὶ ἀδικία πονηρὰ ἀναξηρανει ψυχήν.
A covetous man’s eye is not satisfied with his portion; And the iniquity of the wicked drieth up his soul.
10
עַיִן רַע עָיִן תָּעִיט עַל לָחֶם, וּמְהוּמָה עַל שֻלְחָנוֹ. עַיִן טוֹבָה מַרְבֶּה הַלָּחֶם, וּמַעְיָן יָבֵשׁ יִזַּל מַיִם עַל הַשֻּׁלְחָן.
The eye of him that hath an evil eye (?) is grudging (G) of bread; And there is famine at his table. An evil (S) eye lavishing bread Is as a fountain dried up that should well with water (?).
Ὀφθαλμὸς πονηρὸς φθονερὸς ἐπʼ ἄρτῳ, καὶ ἐλλιπὴς ἐπὶ τῆς τραπέζης αὐτοῦ.
A wicked eye envieth [his] bread, And he is a niggard at his table.
11
בְּנִי אִם יֵשׁ לְךָ שָׁרֵית נַפְשֶׁךָ, וְאִם יֵשׁ לְךָ הֵיטִיב לָךְ.
My son, if thou hast wherewithal, minister (S) to thine own self; And if thou hast, do good unto thyself; And according to the power of ∥ thy hand, make thyself fat.
Τέκνον, καθὼς ἐὰν ἔχεις εὐποίει σεαυτόν, καὶ προσφορὰς Κυρίῳ ἀξίως πρόσαγε.
My son, according to thy ability do good to thyself, And give the Lord his due offering.
12
וּלְאֵל יָדְךָ הִדָּשֵׁן, זְכוֹר כִּי לֹא בִשְׁאוֹל תַּעֲנוּג. וְלֹא מָוֶת יִתְמַהְמַהּ, וְחֹק לִשְׁאוֹל לֹא הֻגַּד לָךְ.
Remember that there is no luxury in Sheol; And death doth not tarry; And the decree of Sheol (?) hath not been declared to thee.
Μνήσθητι ὅτι θάνατος οὐ χρονιεῖ, καὶ διαθήκη ᾅδου οὐχ ὑπεδείχθη σοι.
Remember that death will not be long in coming, And that the covenant of the grave is not shown unto thee.
13
בְּטֶרֶם תָּמוּת הֵיטִב לְאוֹהֵב, וְהַשִּׂיגַת יָדְךָ תֶּן לוֹ.
Do good to a friend before thou die; And as thy hand attaineth (?) give unto him.
Πρίν σε τελευτῆσαι εὐποίει φίλῳ, καὶ κατὰ τὴν ἰσχύν σου ἔκτεινον καὶ δὸς αὐτῷ.
Do good unto thy friend before thou die, And according to thy ability stretch out thy hand and give to him.
14
אַל תִּמְנַע מִטּוֹבַת יוֹם, [וְאַל תִּמְנַע מִטּוֹבָה נַפְשֶׁךָ]. וּבְהִלֶּקַח אָח אַל תְּעַבֵּר, וַחֲמוּד רֵעַ אַל תַּחְמֹד.
Refuse not the day's good cheer. But encroach not upon a brother's portion (?); And covet not the desirable things of a neighbour.
Μὴ ἀφυστερήσῃς ἀπὸ ἀγαθῆς ἡμέρας, καὶ μερὶς ἐπιθυμίας ἀγαθῆς μή σε παρελθάτω.
Defraud not thyself of the good day, And let not the part of a good desire overpass thee.
15
הֲלֹא לְאַחֵר תַּעֲזוֹב חֵילֶךָ, וִיגִיעֲךָ לְיוֹדֵי גוֹרָל.
Shalt thou not leave thy riches to another; And thy labour to them that cast lots?
Οὐχὶ ἑτέρῳ καταλείψεις τοὺς πόνους σου, καὶ τοὺς κόπους σου εἰς διαίρεσιν κλήρου;
Shalt thou not leave thy travails unto another? And thy labors to be divided by lot?
16
תֵּן לְאָח וְחֹנֵן וּפַנֵּק נַפְשֶׁךָ, כִּי אֵין בִּשְׁאוֹל לְבַקֵּשׁ תַּעֲנוּג. וְכָל דָּבָר שֶׁיָּפֶה לַעֲשׂוֹת, לִפְנֵי אֱלֹהִים עֲשֶׂה.
Give to a brother (H), and let thy soul fare delicately; For there is no seeking of luxury in Sheol. And whatsoever thing is seemly to do; Do it before (?) God.
Δὸς καὶ λάβε, καὶ ἀπάτησον τὴν ψυχήν σου, ὅτι οὐκ ἔστιν ἐν ᾅδου ζητῆσαι τρυφήν.
Give, and take, and sanctify thy soul; For there is no seeking of dainties in the grave.
17
כָּל הַבָּשָׂר כַּבֶּגֶד יִבְלֶה, וְחֹק עוֹלָם גֹּוֵעַ יִגְוָעוּ.
All flesh waxeth old as a garment; And the everlasting decree is, They shall surely perish.
Πᾶσα σὰρξ ὡς ἱμάτιον παλαιοῦται, ἡ γὰρ διαθήκη ἀπʼ αἰῶνος θανάτῳ ἀποθανῇ.
All flesh waxeth old as a garment: For the covenant from the beginning is, Thou shalt die the death.
18
כְּפֶרַח עָלֶה עַל עֵץ רַעֲנָן, שֶׁזֶּה נוֹבֵל וְאַחֵר צוֹמֵחַ. כֵּן דּוֹרוֹת בָּשָׂר וָדָם, אֶחַד גֹּוֵעַ וְאֶחַד גּוֹמֵל.
As leaves grow upon a green tree, Whereof one withereth, and another springeth up; So of the generations of flesh and blood, One perisheth, and another ripeneth (M).
Ὡς φύλλον θάλλον ἐπὶ δένδρου δασέος, τὰ μὲν καταβάλλει, ἀλλα δὲ φύει· οὕτως γενεὰ σαρκὸς καὶ αἵματος, ἡ μὲν τελευτᾷ, ἑτέρα δὲ γεννᾶται.
As of the green leaves on a thick tree, Some fall, and some grow: So is the generation of flesh and blood, One cometh to an end, and another is born.
19
כָּל מַעֲשָׂיו רָקוֹב יִרְקָבוּ, וּפֹעַל יָדָיו יִמָּשֵׁךְ אַחֲרָיו.
All his works shall surely rot; And his handywork shall draw after him.
Πᾶν ἔργον σηπόμενον ἐκλείπει, καὶ ὁ ἐργαζόμενος αὐτὸ μετʼ αὐτοῦ ἀπελεύσεται.
Every work rotteth and consumeth away, And the worker thereof shall go withal.
20
אַשְׁרֵי אֱנוֹשׁ בְּחָכְמָה יֶהְגֶּה, וּבִתְבוּנָה יִשְׁעֶה.
Happy is the man that shall meditate in wisdom; And shall have respect to understanding.
Μακάριος ἀνὴρ ὃς ἐν σοφίᾳ τελευτήσει, καὶ ὃς ἐν συνέσει αὐτοῦ διαλεχθήσεται·
Blessed is the man that doth meditate good things in wisdom, And that reasoneth of holy things by his understanding.
21
הַשָּׂם עַל דְרָכֶיהַ לִבּוֹ, וּבִתְבוּנֹתֶיהַ יִתְבּוֹנָן.
That setteth his heart upon her ways; And considereth her paths (S).
ὡ διανοούμενος τὰς ὁδοὺς αὐτῆς ἐν καρδίᾳ αὐτοῦ, καὶ ἐν τοῖς ἀποκρύφοις αὐτῆς νοηθήσεται.
He that considereth her ways in his heart Shall also have understanding in her secrets.
22
לָצֵאת אַחֲרֶיהָ בְחֵקֶר, וְכָל מְבוֹאֶיהָ יְרַצֵּד.
Going forth after her in search of her; And spying all her entries.
Ἔξελθε ὀπίσω αὐτῆς ὡς ἰχνευτὴς, καὶ ἐν ταῖς εἰσόδοις αὐτῆς ἐνέδρευε.
Go after her as one that traceth, And lie in wait in her ways.
23
הַמַּשְׁקִיף בְּעַד חֲלוֹנָה, וְעַל פְּתָחֶיהָ יְצוֹתֵת.
That prieth through her window; And will hearken at her doors.
Ὁ παρακύπτων διὰ τῶν θυρίδων αὐτῆς, καὶ ἐπὶ τῶν θυρωμάτων αὐτῆς ἀκροάσεται·
He that prieth in at her windows Shall also hearken at her doors.
24
הַחוֹנֶה סְבִיבוֹת בֵּיתָהּ, וְהֵבִיא יְתֵדָיו בְּקִירָהּ.
He that encampeth about her house; And driveth his pegs (?) into her wall.
ὁ καταλύων σύνεγγυς τοῦ οἴκου αὐτῆς, καὶ πήξει πάσσαλον ἐν τοῖς τοίχοις αὐτῆς.
He that doth lodge near her house Shall also fasten a pin in her walls.
25
וְנוֹטֶה אָהֳלוֹ עַל יָדָהּ, וְשָׁכַן שֹׁכֶן טוֹב.
And he pitcheth his tent by her side; And dwelleth in good neighbourhood.
Στήσει τὴν σκηνὴν αὐτοῦ κατὰ χεῖρας αὐτῆς, καὶ καταλύσει ἐν καταλύματι ἀγαθῶν.
He shall pitch his tent nigh unto her, And shall lodge in a lodging where good things are.
26
וְיָשִׂים קִנּוֹ בְעָפְיָהּ, וּבַעֲנָפֶיהָ יִתְלוֹנָן.
And he will set his nest on her bough; And will lodge in her branches.
Θήσει τὰ τέκνα αὐτοῦ ἐν τῇ σκέπῃ αὐτῆς, καὶ ὑπὸ τοὺς κλάδους αὐτῆς αὐλισθήσεται.
He shall set his children under her shelter, And shall lodge under her branches.
27
וְחוֹסֶה בְּצִלָּהּ מֵחֹרֶב, וּבִמְעוֹנוֹתֶיהָ יִשְׁכֹּן.
And he sheltereth in her shade from the heat; And will dwell in her habitations.
Σκεπασθήσεται ὑπʼ αὐτῆς ἀπὸ καύματος, καὶ ἐν τῇ δόξῃ αὐτῆς καταλύσει.
By her he shall be covered from heat, And in her glory shall he dwell.

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.